The Perfect Workspace According to Science
Originally posted by Christian Jarrett on https://99u.com
The spaces we occupy shape who we are and how we behave. This has serious consequences for our psychological well-being and creative performance. Given that many of us spend years working in the same room, or even at the same desk, it makes sense to organize and optimize that space in the most beneficial ways possible.
When it comes to building your workspace you can aim for the trendy look and flick through some interior design mags, or you can let science guide the way. Based on recent psychology and neuroscience findings, here are some simple and effective steps you can take once to improve your productivity for years:
Take ownership of your workspace
The simple act of making your own decisions about how to organize your workspace has an empowering effect and has been linked with improved productivity.
Craig Knight, Director of the Identity Realization workplace consultancy, showed this in a 2010 study with Alex Haslam involving 47 office workers in London. Those workers given the opportunity to arrange a small office with as many or few plants and pictures as they wanted were up to 32 percent more productive than others not given this control. They also identified more with their employer, a sign of increased commitment to the team effort and increased efficiency.
If you are an office manager this suggests you should give your staff as much input into the design of their office and immediate workspace as possible. Many companies even give their employees a small amount of money to furnish their space. Alternatively, if you’re a creative in an open-plan office, try to find ways to make your mark on your immediate environment. Even the simple use of a pin-board to post your own pictures and messages could help you feel that the space is yours with consequent benefits for your work.
Choose rounded furniture and arrange it wisely
If you have the luxury of designing your own workspace, consider choosing a layout and furniture that is curved and rounded rather than sharp and straight-edged. Creating this environment has been linked with positive emotions, which is known to be beneficial for creativity and productivity (added bonus: there’s also less chance of knocking an elbow or knee on a sharp corner).
In a 2011 study, hundreds of undergrads looked at computer-generated pictures of room interiors and rated those filled with curvilinear (rounded), as opposed to rectilinear, furniture as more pleasing and inviting. Another study out this year found that people rated curvy, rounded environments as more beautiful than straight-edged rectilinear environments and that the rounded spaces triggered more activity in brain regions associated with reward and aesthetic appreciation.
This contrast between straight edges and curves also extends to the way we arrange our furniture. Apparently, King Arthur was on to something: sitting in circles provokes a collective mindset, whereas sitting in straight lines triggers feelings of individuality – something worth thinking about at your next meeting if you want to encourage team cohesion.
Apparently, King Arthur was on to something: sitting in circles provokes a collective mindset.
Take advantage of color, light and space
Choosing the right color and lighting scheme for your office is one of the simplest ways your environment can enhance your performance. Different colors and light levels have different psychological effects, so the ideal situation is to install a lighting system that allows you to alter the hue and brightness of your room to suit the kind of work that you’re engaged in.
For instance, exposure to both blue and green has been shown to enhance performance on tasks that require generating new ideas. However, the color redhas been linked with superior performance on tasks involving attention to detail. Another study out this year showed that a dimmer environment fostered superior creativity in terms of idea generation, probably because it encourages a feeling of freedom. On the other hand, brighter light levels were more conducive to analytical and evaluative thinking.
Not as easy to modify, but ceiling height has also been shown to have psychological effects. A 2007 study found that a higher ceiling was associated with feelings of freedom, together with a more abstract and relational thinking style that helped participants see the commonalities between objects and concepts.
Make use of plants and windows
If you only do one thing to optimize your workspace, invest in a green plant or two.Research has repeatedly shown that the presence of office plants has a range of benefits including helping workers recover from demanding activities and lowering stress levels. As a bonus, there’s also evidence that plants can reduce office pollution levels.
Another feature of an optimized office is a window with a view, preferably of a natural landscape. This is because a glance at the hills or a lake recharges your mind. Obviously a view of nature isn’t possible for many people who work in cities, but even in an urban situation, a view of trees or intricate architecture have both been linked with restorative benefits. If you can’t negotiate a desk with a view, another plan is to choose an office in your building that’s the shortest stroll from an urban park. A visit here will revitalize your mind and compensate for your lack of a view.
If you only do one thing to optimize your workspace, invest in a green plant or two.
The benefits of a messy desk
There’s a lot of pressure these days to be organized. How are you supposed to get your work done if you can’t even find a clear space on your desk to roll a mouse or place a plant? But new research suggests Einstein may have been onto something when he opined: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota found that participants tested in a messy room at a desk covered with paper came up with more imaginative uses for a ping pong ball than participants tested in a tidy room. This matches the views of consultant Craig Knight who has argued against the modern trend for “lean” workspaces. “We don’t understand psychologically why putting someone in an impoverished space should work, when it doesn’t work for any other animal on the planet,” he said recently.
It also fits with the advice from Eric Abrahamson – co-author of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder – who says people with highly ordered desks oftenstruggle to find things because their filing systems are so complicated. He also points out a key advantage to a mess – you can find things in it that you didn’t expect. Discovering that ground-breaking idea you scribbled on a piece of paper two years ago could be just the spark to get your next project off the ground.
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It’s easy to neglect the importance of your workspace, especially if you’re under pressure of deadlines and not so into interior design. But hopefully this review has convinced you that the spaces we occupy really can affect us psychologically. It’s vital that you choose an office space that you feel happy and comfortable in. If your freedom is restricted, shape the space as much as you can to make it your own. Get your surroundings in order and the rest is sure to follow.
Red-meat eaters increase risk of diabetes with more portions
Originally posted by Nicole Ostraw on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
(Bloomberg) -- Eating more red meat over time raises the risk of getting Type 2 diabetes, while cutting back reduces the danger, research shows.
Consuming an additional half-serving a day of red meat during a four-year period increased a person’s chance of developing diabetes by 48% in the subsequent four years, according to a study this month in JAMA Internal Medicine. Reducing red meat consumption lowered diabetes risk long term, says lead study author An Pan.
The study is the first to look at changes in red meat consumption over time and how that affects diabetes risk, Pan says. The results confirm previous research that had linked red meat intake to diabetes risk and suggests that limiting the amount of beef, pork and lamb people eat is beneficial, he says.
“If possible, try to reduce red meat and replace with other healthy choices like beans and legumes, nuts, fish, poultry, whole grains, etc.,” says Pan, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore.
The meat contains high amounts of an iron that can cause insulin resistance, which may raise the risk of diabetes, he says. The food is also high in saturated fat and cholesterol and processed forms have nitrates and high levels of sodium that may also increase the danger of developing the disease, he says.
Researchers analyzed data and followed up with 26,357 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, 48,709 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and 74,077 women in the Nurses’ Health Study 2. They assessed their diets through questionnaires every four years.
There were 7,540 cases of type 2 diabetes over the study.
The research showed that reducing red meat consumption by more than a half a serving per day from the start of the trial through the first four years of follow up resulted in a 14% lower risk of diabetes over the entire time period.
In an accompanying editorial, William Evans, vice president and head of the Muscle Metabolism Discovery Performance Unit at London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc and an adjunct professor of geriatrics at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., writes that it may not be the type of meat but the fat that can raise diabetes risk.
“There’s no reason why the color of meat itself is the thing that results in an increased risk in diabetes,” he says. “The overwhelming data would tell us it’s the amount of saturated fat. A chunk of cheddar cheese has as much fat and saturated fat as a T-bone steak.”
He says another study looking to find similar links between dairy, which can be high in saturated fats, and diabetes is needed to determine if the fats are the culprits.
Saturated fats increase inflammation in the body, leading to heart disease and insulin resistance.
Job satisfaction beats salary
Workers willing to exchange money for being happy on the job
Originally posted by Andrea Davis on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
Even in the face of a turbulent economy and competitive job market, 68% of working Americans would be willing to take a pay cut to work in a job that better allowed them to apply their personal interests to the workplace. Moreover, almost one-quarter of workers (23%) would take a pay cut of 25% or more. The results come from a survey of 1,000 working Americans conducted by Philips North America. (see the infographic on page 41 for more survey results.)
Old paradigm gone
"Seven percent were willing to take a 50% pay cut. That's a life changing number but it's something people were willing to give up to have a career opportunity that was really consistent with their passions and goals," says Russell Schramm, Philips' head of talent acquisition for the Americas. "The whole paradigm of getting your degree, getting a job, making money regardless of what you're doing, is gone."
Forty-eight percent of workers who are able to leverage personal interests in the workplace say they are very satisfied, according to the survey.
"In talent acquisition, we talk a lot about what makes a person accept a position or leave a position and we're seeing, more and more, that meaningful work and work that is relevant to them and their personal passions is becoming more prominent," says Schramm, adding that one of his biggest challenges is being able to identify those personal passions and interests in the candidates who come in for interviews.
"Empowering my team to look at not just what's on the résumé, but [to] look at beyond what's on the résumé [is important]," he says. "What is the motivating driver? What is this person interested in? How are they going to apply that to Philips?"
Talent acquisition is rapidly shifting, he says, "from a transactional, requisition-based process to a much more qualitative process where we're looking for people with a deeper set of skills above and beyond the hard skills that are just required to do the job."
Career path regrets
Forty-one percent of those who don't apply personal interests through their work regret their career path, whereas only 23% of workers who are able to do so regret theirs. More than half (51%) of those surveyed have never changed career paths to integrate their work and personal life in a more meaningful way.
"The survey was our way of understanding what motivates people in the labor market," says Schramm, of the reasons for conducting the survey. "We wanted to understand some of those things that really drive talented individuals in the labor market so we could develop and deliver a workplace reality that would be attractive to those folks."
Workers with windows sleep more soundly
Originally posted by Dan Cook on https://www.benefitspro.com
"What light through yonder window breaks?” Romeo asks in the second act of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
Perhaps it is the light of the glow of good health and the brightness of eye of the well-rested. At least, that’s what a recent survey suggests the legendary lover was referring to.
The research, presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, was based on a study of 49 day-shift windowed and windowless workers.
Those with windows got 173 percent more white light at work than non-windowed workers.
The well-lit employees slept 46 minutes more a night than those without windows.
Whether it’s the light, the rest, or a combination of both, the windowed workers were more physically active during the day and reported having a higher quality of life than their four-walls-surround-me peers.
They didn’t get as sleepy during the day (no, duh) and reported fewer “sleep disturbances” at night.
This window into the workplace was provided by doctoral candidate Ivy Cheung, in the interdepartmental neuroscience program at Northwestern University in Chicago.
The 4-Minute Workout
Originally published by Gretchen Reynolds on The New York Times health blog.
Thanks to an ingratiating new study, we may finally be closer to answering that ever-popular question regarding our health and fitness: How little exercise can I get away with?
The answer, it seems, may be four minutes.
For the study, which was published last month in the journal PLoS One, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, and other institutions attempted to delineate the minimum amount of exercise required to develop appreciable endurance and health gains. They began by reconsidering their own past work, which had examined the effects of a relatively large dose of high-intensity intervals on various measures of health and fitness.
For those unfamiliar with the term, high-intensity intervals are just that: bursts of strenuous exercise lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes, interspersed with periods of rest. In recent years, a wealth of studies have established that sessions of high-intensity exercises can be as potent, physiologically, as much longer bouts of sustained endurance exercise.
In a representative study from 2010, for instance, Canadian researchers showed that 10 one-minute intervals — essentially, 10 minutes of strenuous exercise braided with one-minute rest periods between — led to the same changes within muscle cells as about 90 minutes of moderate bike riding.
Similarly, the Norwegian scientists for some years have been studying the effects of intense intervals lasting for four minutes, performed at about 90 percent of each volunteer’s maximum heart rate and repeated four times, with a three-minute rest between each interval. The total meaningful exercise time in these sessions, then, is 16 minutes.
Which, the researchers thought, might just be too much.
“One of the main reasons people give” for not exercising is that they don’t have time, says Arnt Erik Tjonna, a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who led the study.
So he and his colleagues decided to slim down the regimen and determine whether a single, strenuous four-minute workout would effectively improve health and fitness.
To do so, they gathered 26 overweight and sedentary but otherwise healthy middle-aged men, determined their baseline endurance and cardiovascular and metabolic health, and randomly assigned them to one of two groups.
Half began a supervised exercise program that reiterated the Norwegian researchers’ former routine. After briefly warming up, these volunteers ran on a treadmill at 90 percent of their maximal heart rate — a tiring pace, says Dr. Tjonna, at which “you cannot talk in full sentences, but can use single words” — for four four-minute intervals, with three minutes of slow walking between, followed by a brief cool-down. The entire session was repeated three times a week for 10 weeks.
The second group, however, completed only one four-minute strenuous run. They, too, exercised three times a week for 10 weeks.
At the end of the program, the men had increased their maximal oxygen uptake, or endurance capacity, by an average of 10 percent or more, with no significant differences in the gains between the two groups.
Metabolic and cardiovascular health likewise had improved in both groups, with almost all of the men now displaying better blood sugar control and blood pressure profiles, whether they had exercised vigorously for 16 minutes per session, or four minutes per session, and despite the fact that few of the men had lost much body fat.
“This is not a weight-loss program,” Dr. Tjonna says. It is, instead, he says, “a suggestion for how people can make a kick-start for better fitness,” or maintain fitness already gained, when other obligations press on your time.
The results, Dr. Tjonna says, persuasively suggest that “getting in shape does not demand a big effort” in terms of time.
That finding, though, inevitably raises the question of whether the bar could drop even lower. Could, for instance, a mere two minutes of strenuous training effectively improve health and fitness?
Dr. Tjonna, the killjoy, doubts it. There are other groups of scientists looking at even shorter bouts of exercise, he says, “but it seems like they don’t get the same results regarding the maximal oxygen uptake” as the four-minute sessions used in his experiment. Since improved maximal oxygen uptake can reliably indicate better overall cardiovascular health, he suspects that “we need a certain length of the interval to trigger” such health and fitness benefits.
Thankfully, for those worried that a trip to the gym is an inefficient means of completing four minutes of exercise, the workout can effectively be practiced anywhere, Dr. Tjonna says. Sprint uphill for four minutes or race up multiple flights of steps. Bicycle, swim or even walk briskly, as long as you raise your heart rate sufficiently for four minutes. (Obviously, consult your doctor first if you haven’t been active in the past.)
“Everyone, we think,” Dr. Tjonna says, “has time for this kind of exercise three times a week.”
Special thanks to the Reduced Shakespeare Company and Christopher McDougall for their contributions to the Well 4-Minute Workout playlist.
Volunteering linked to better physical, mental health
Originally posted by Andrea Davis on the Employee Benefit News website.
Three-quarters of volunteers say volunteering has made them feel physically healthier and lowered their stress levels, according to a new study released today by UnitedHealth Group and the Optum Institute. The study also illustrates that employers benefit from employees who volunteer in terms of better employee health and in professional skills development that employees use in the workplace.
Volunteers are also more engaged in their health than non-volunteers, with 80% of the people who’ve volunteered in the past 12 months saying they feel they have control over their health. Moreover, about one-quarter of the people who’ve volunteered in the past month say that volunteering has helped them to manage a chronic illness.
In addition to physical and mental health benefits, employees who volunteer say doing so has helped them learn valuable business skills. Sixty-four percent of employees who currently volunteer said that volunteering with work colleagues has strengthened their relationships, while three-quarters of people who say that volunteering helped their career report that volunteering has helped them refine existing professional skills and build new ones.
“Employers enjoy the benefits of physically and mentally healthier employees; those that support volunteering programs in the workplace see added benefits that drive directly to their bottom line,” said Kate Rubin, vice president of social responsibility with UnitedHealth Group.
The findings are based on a national survey of 3,351 adults conducted by Harris Interactive.
Weight Watchers for business: What former executive knows about corporate wellness
Original article from https://www.bizjournals.com
By Brianne Pfannenstiel
Romy Carlson knows as well as anyone that getting corporate America on board with office weight loss programs is almost as challenging as actually losing weight.
The former Weight Watchers executive just signed on with corporate wellness company Retrofit as vice president of business development.
She'll be based here in Kansas City and will oversee the development and acquisition of new business. With about 17 years of experience in the field of corporate wellness, she said she knows that getting busy executives to commit to office weight loss or wellness programs comes with a unique set of challenges.
"It's an interesting arena because at first you would think that maybe people are just scared of it, maybe executives are nervous because they don't necessarily manage their own health so how do they push it out to their employees?" Carlson said.
Male CEOs are actually more likely to be overweight than men within the general population, according to one study from Michigan State University.
The study showed that between 45 and 61 percent of top male CEOs are overweight, and between 5 and 22 percent of top female CEOs are overweight.
"So far there really hasn't been a great technology-based program that serves the busy professional," Carlson said.
That's one reason she got on board at Retrofit — it's Weight Watchers, in a sense, tailored specifically for professionals in the workplace.
Companies sign up to partner with Retrofit and can subsidize membership fees for its employees. Retrofit then sends each participant a wireless activity tracker and a wireless scale, both of which automatically upload the data to a team of Retrofit professionals who meet individually with the employees to discuss personalized wellness programs.
New PPACA wellness rules include fat rewards
Original article from https://www.benefitspro.com
By Allen Greenberg
May 29th, 2014
Workers who lose weight or quit smoking while enrolled in a workplace wellness programs could see their health care premiums drop under new rules issued Wednesday as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Beyond lowering premiums, the Health and Human Services Department said the rules — released by HHS along with the Labor and Treasury departments — also are aimed at protecting individuals from unfair underwriting practices that could reduce their health benefits.
Wellness programs typically tie financial incentives to weight loss or reducing blood sugar.
As the mounting cost of health insurance continues to strain budgets, both employers and policy makers are increasingly turning to wellness programs as a way to help bring those costs under control.
Proponents say wellness programs can save employers as much as $7 for every $1 spent, as well as deliver higher employee morale, reduced absenteeism and increased productivity and retention.
The rules support “participatory wellness programs” that, for example, reimburse employees for the cost of membership in a fitness center, or provide some kind of reward to employees for attending a monthly, no-cost health education seminar.
The rules also outline standards to reward individuals who meet a specific outcome related to their health, say losing weight or cutting smoking.
Some Democrats in Congress worried that the outcome-based programs could allow insurers to discriminate against unhealthy people.
Businesses, meanwhile, expressed concerns about overly burdensome regulations, requiring them to provide tests to determine whether employees met wellness program benchmarks. Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, in a letter said she worried that "certain provision[s] of the proposed regulations will impede innovation and increase administrative and cost burdens for wellness programs, with little to no benefit to participants."
But HHS said it had "clarified" some "confusion" about how the new incentives would work, though it left intact the size of the incentive employees can receive for meeting wellness goals. Some had wanted the incentives reduced.
Under the rules, employers can bump up the maximum permissible dollar amount of the rewards offered to employees to 30 percent — it had been 20 percent — of the total cost of their health care coverage, and can raise incentives tied to smoking prevention or reduction programs to up to 50 percent of total coverage costs.
"Today’s final rules ensure flexibility for employers by increasing the maximum reward that may be offered under appropriately designed wellness programs, including outcome-based programs," HHS said in a statement.
"The final rules also protect consumers by requiring that health-contingent wellness programs be reasonably designed, be uniformly available to all similarly situated individuals, and accommodate recommendations made at any time by an individual’s physician based on medical appropriateness."
The intent, HHS said, is that, regardless of the type of wellness program, anyone taking part in the program should be able to receive the full amount of any reward or incentive, “regardless of any health factor.”
Above all, HHS said, it has tried to be reasonable.
"These final regulations state that a wellness program is reasonably designed if it has a reasonable chance of improving the health of, or preventing disease in, participating individuals, and is not overly burdensome, is not a subterfuge for discrimination based on a health factor, and is not highly suspect in the method chosen to promote health or prevent disease," agency officials said.
The rules will go into effect Jan. 1.
Companies can tie worker health premium cost to wellness
Original article from eba.benefitnews.com
By Alex Nussbaum
Businesses in the U.S. won more freedom to charge higher insurance premiums to workers who don’t meet health goals, or reward those who shape up, under rules released by the Obama administration.
Three years in the making, the regulations also require employers to offer a “reasonable alternative” for workers who can’t meet standards on weight, cholesterol or other measures, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said yesterday in a statement. That’s meant to protect employees from discrimination, although the agency rejected calls by consumer groups that companies provide medical evidence for claims that wellness programs improve health.
“The final rules support workplace health promotion and prevention,” the department said, “while ensuring that individuals are protected from unfair underwriting.”
Conditions such as obesity and diabetes account for three-quarters of U.S. health spending, and wellness programs have been gaining in popularity as businesses grapple with rising costs. The regulations, mandated by the Affordable Care Act, let employers charge workers as much as 30% of their medical-plan premiums if they fail to meet goals, an increase from the current 20%. The rules take effect Jan. 1.
Incentive programs
Almost half of U.S. companies with more than 200 employees now have wellness programs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health research group based in Menlo Park, California. The incentives can be tied to activities such as joining a gym or getting a blood-pressure test or specific targets such as body-mass index.
While the administration eased some proposals, the regulations will still complicate wellness efforts, says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health. The Washington-based nonprofit represents large employers including Dell Inc., American Express Co. and PepsiCo Inc.
The rules give workers more leeway to seek changes in wellness targets they can’t meet due to health conditions and to have their doctors suggest alternative measures. There’s a danger that could tie up employers in protracted negotiations over health goals, Darling says.
“The more you put in terms of requirements and the more risk you make for employers, the more likely they are to say, ‘we don’t need this hassle,’” she says. “It’s making a lot more work for employers, and therefore, more expense.”
Consumer protections
Families USA, a Washington-based consumer group, welcomed the consumer protections.
“These rules will help ensure that wellness programs are designed to actually promote wellness, and that they are not just used as a backdoor way to shift health care costs to those struggling with health problems,” says Ron Pollack, the group’s executive director.
The health agency today also released a study of workplace wellness efforts, also mandated by the health care law. The report by the Rand Corp. found small yet promising changes in worker behavior and costs from programs at 600 businesses.
The measures “can reduce risk factors, such as smoking and increase healthy behaviors, such as exercise,” the Santa Monica, California-based research institute said in the report. Its analysis “confirms that workplace wellness programs can help contain the current epidemic of lifestyle-related diseases.”
The move to tie workers’ costs to their health is being examined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to see whether such programs violate anti-discrimination laws. And California’s legislature is considering a bill that would bar linking financial rewards to a worker’s health status.
While some studies suggest $3 or more is saved for every $1 spent on wellness programs, the gains may come from shifting costs to less-healthy employees rather than changing behavior, according to a March analysis in Health Affairs.
Lowering salt intake to improve health may backfire
Original article from eba.benefitnews.com
By Anna Edney
Lowering sodium intake, a drumbeat of doctors’ efforts to improve patient health, may have the opposite effect if taken to the extreme, scientists said.
U.S. dietary guidelines to reduce sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams a day for certain people aren’t supported by enough scientific evidence, an Institute of Medicine panel said in a recent report. Studies reviewed by the panel didn’t prove health outcomes improved when salt consumption was cut to that level.
“Lowering sodium intake too much may actually increase a person’s risk of some health problems,” says Brian Strom, the panel chairman and a public health professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. The studies still “support previous findings that reducing sodium from very high intake levels to moderate levels improves health.”
Adults consume an average 3,400 milligrams of salt each day. The U.S. recommends 2,300 milligrams for the general public and as low as 1,500 milligrams for those with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, black people and people older than age 50. The American Heart Association, which advises 1,500 milligrams for everyone, challenged the report.
“The report is missing a critical component — a comprehensive review of well-established evidence which links too much sodium to high blood pressure and heart disease,” says Nancy Brown, chief executive officer of the association.
In addition, studies that don’t show a benefit on heart disease or adverse effects were conducted on sick people, the Dallas-based association said in a statement.
Complex changes
The IOM panel said it looked at studies that measured health outcomes such as heart disease and death rather than high blood pressure as an indicator of heart disease.
“These studies make clear that looking at sodium’s effects on blood pressure is not enough to determine dietary sodium’s ultimate impact on health,” Strom says. “Changes in diet are more complex than simply changing a single mineral. More research is needed to understand these pathways.”
The report recognizes that blood pressure is only one of many factors that should be considered when evaluating dietary changes, the Salt Institute, an Alexandria, Virginia-based trade group that represents companies including Morton Salt Inc., said in a statement. Morton Satin, vice president of science and research for the Salt Institute, praised the report’s caution against reducing sodium to 1,500 milligrams.
Potential harm
“The recognition by the IOM experts that such low levels may cause harm may help steer overzealous organizations away from reckless recommendations,” Satin says.
The panel’s report didn’t list what a healthy sodium range would be, and the authors said further research is needed on associations between lower levels of sodium and health outcomes.
The Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the Washington-based nonprofit National Academies, provides medical advice to policy makers and the public. The report was sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.