The FDA is considering a proposal to remove salt (sodium chloride) from its list of foods "generally recognized as safe" or GRAS. The reason: Americans, by and large, consume too much of the stuff, primarily in processed foods.
Excessive salt consumption is linked to high blood pressure (hypertension) and heart disease. The American Heart Association recommends a daily salt intake of less than 2,300 milligrams or about a teaspoon, but most Americans consume almost twice that each day.
By removing salt from the GRAS list, food manufacturers could be subject to limits on how much salt they could use in production. Food makers say such a change would profoundly impact their industry, causing them to reformulate virtually every recipe and food category.
Moreover, they say a less-salt mandate would be minimally effective, that Americans need to take other measures to reduce hypertension, such as eating more vegetables and fruit and reducing consumption of trans fats and alcohol.
BODY OF KNOWLEDGE
The knee is the most easily injured joint in the human body: More than 1.4 million Americans are admitted into hospitals each year with knee problems.
NEVER SAY DIET
The world's speed-eating record for quarter-pound hamburgers is 11.25 in 10 minutes, held by Don Lerman.
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STORIES FOR THE WAITING ROOM
Except as an excuse to visit the emergency room, the appendix has long defied medical explanations for its existence. It just sits there, attached to the beginning of the large intestine like a parasitical worm with no apparent effect upon digestion.
Now researchers at Duke University have come up with a proposed raison d'etre for the appendix: It's a safe house for beneficial bacteria.
Like many other organisms, humans depend on gut bacteria to aid digestion, produce nutrients and keep harmful microbes at bay. However, when we're sick, say with a bad case of diarrhea, good bacteria can be flushed away.
According to researchers, the appendix, which is safely removed from most intestinal ailments, is there to provide microbial seed stock for recovery.
PHOBIA OF THE WEEK
Mottephobia - fear of moths
BEST MEDICINE
Doctor to patient: "Well, Mrs. Jones, I'm afraid you're not quite as sick as we'd hoped."
OBSERVATION
Expensive medicines are always good - if not for the patient, at least for the druggist.
- Russian proverb
CURTAIN CALLS
In 1903, in Liverpool, England, an elderly man was following his 224-pound wife up some stairs in their house when she lost her balance and fell backward, hit her head on the floor and died instantly.
The husband lay trapped under his dead spouse for three days. When friends finally found the couple, he was dead, too.
