Salt Shaker (Photo : Twitter)
New York City is protecting its residents as well as visitors from the cardiovascular disease hypertension by mandating dining establishments to place warnings on their menu if an item has high levels of salt.
On Wednesday, the city's Board of Health approved a regulation that restaurants with at least 15 locations across the U.S. must place the warning. Such establishments account for about one-third of restaurant traffic in the Big Apple.
In a statement, the Health Department explains: "High sodium intake is dangerous. With a simple menu icon and statement to alert restaurant customers which items have exceedingly high sodium, New Yorkers will have easy accessible information."
Too much salt causes a person's blood pressure to shoot up, placing the diner at risk of heart attack and stroke. A newly released Australian research identified stimulating the immune system as the likely cause of hypertension. High salt intake or stress causes the production of antibodies made by B cells which are a type of immune cells. Once the antibodies lodge in blood vessels, it stiffens and scars, which causes high blood pressure, reports IBTimes.
The threshold considered high salt content is 2,300 milligrams of sodium which is the recommended daily limit by health authorities. Items on the menu exceeding that standard would have a salt shaker icon beside it as the warning indicator, beginning on Dec. 1, 2015.
New York previously required calorie counts on menus and banned trans fat. Since the city is considered a national leader in health policies, NYC Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said at a news conference on Wednesday, "Many others recognize the important public health impact of excess sodium intake, and I am hopeful others will follow suit," quotes the New York Times.
