Dietary modifications recommended to help lower elevated blood pressure generally focus on reducing dietary sodium levels. The Food and Drug Administration's efforts to promote sodium awareness by consumers and to provide for more sodium labeling by the food industry have produced measurable results. Voluntary sodium labeling of food products that began in 1981 resulted in a substantial increase in the number of foods that carry sodium labeling and a wider selection of foods with lower sodium levels. New labeling regulations that went into effect in July 1986 require sodium content to be included on any foods carrying a nutrition label. The regulations also allow manufactures to include a statement on the amount of sodium in one serving of a product on items that do not carry complete nutrition information, and provide definitions for the following terms that manufacturers can use to describe the sodium content of products: "sodium free," "very low sodium," "low sodium," "reduced sodium." Tables show 1) overall increases in the percentage of sodium-labeled products available from 1978 to 1984, 2) overall declines in food grade salt sales from 1978 to 1984, and 3) increases in the percentage of sodium-labeled products for selected types of foods between 1978 and 1984.(aje)
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