Introduction

Dietary salt reduction of Americans has been a focus of public health initiatives for more than 40 years primarily due to the association between high salt intake and development of hypertension. Despite past efforts, salt intake of Americans has remained at levels well above dietary recommendations, likely due in part to the hedonic appeal of salty taste. As such, in 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) suggested a strategy of gradual salt reduction of processed foods, the primary source of Americans’ dietary salt intake, via an approach intended to minimize its impact on consumer acceptability of lower-sodium foods.

Methods

This brief review discusses the ontogeny and development of human salty taste preference, the role of experience in shifting salt preference, and sources of dietary salt. Our current understanding of shifting human salty taste preference is discussed within the context of potential opportunities and challenges in reducing salt intake of Americans via the IOM’s suggested strategy.

Results

Gaps in the research that both limit our ability to predict effectiveness of gradual salt reduction and that need be addressed before a strategy to shift salt preference can realistically be implemented were identified.

Conclusions

Our current understanding of shifting salt preference suggests that a strategy focused on reducing salt in processed foods has potential for success due to the strong association between salt intake and preference; however, because the IOM’s strategy has not been tested directly, effectiveness remains unresolved.

Implications

It may be imprudent to extrapolate from existing relatively short-term studies to conclude that gradually reducing salt in the food supply would be effective for both reducing salt intake and salt preference of a national population.

中文翻译：

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改变人类对咸味的偏爱：减少美国人饮食盐摄入量的潜在机遇和挑战。

介绍

过去40多年来，美国人降低饮食中的盐分一直是公共卫生计划的重点，这主要归因于高盐摄入量与高血压的发展之间的联系。尽管有过往的努力，但美国人的盐摄入量仍保持在远高于饮食建议的水平，这可能部分是由于咸味的享乐主义吸引力所致。因此，2010年，医学研究所（IOM）提出了一种逐步减少加工食品盐分的策略，该工艺食品是美国人膳食盐摄入量的主要来源，其方法旨在最大程度地降低其对低钠食品的消费者可接受性的影响。

方法

这篇简短的评论讨论了人类咸味偏爱的发生和发展，经验在改变盐偏爱中的作用以及饮食中盐的来源。通过IOM建议的策略，在减少美国人食盐摄入量的潜在机会和挑战的背景下，讨论了我们当前对改变人类咸味口味的理解。

结果

确定了研究中的空白，这些空白既限制了我们预测逐步减盐效果的能力，又需要在实际实施改变食盐偏爱的策略之前加以解决。

结论

我们目前对改变盐的偏爱的理解表明，由于盐的摄入量与偏爱之间密切相关，因此专注于减少加工食品中的盐的策略具有成功的潜力。但是，由于IOM的策略尚未经过直接测试，因此有效性仍未解决。

含意

从现有的相对短期研究中推断得出以下结论可能是不明智的，即得出结论，逐渐减少食品供应中的盐分将有效地减少全国人口的盐分摄入量和盐分偏好。