8A the university daily kansan
thursday, february 12, 2004
news
Survey says too much salt clogs America's system
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Americans eat more than twice the salt they should but don't get enough potassium, an imbalance that fuels high blood pressure.
So says a long-awaited nutrition report, released yesterday by the Institute of Medicine, that sets the nation's recommended intake levels of key nutrients.
Heart specialists praised the new salt recommendation while food manufacturers deemed it
unrealistic. Three-quarters of Americans' daily salt intake comes from sodium hidden in common processed and restaurant foods, such as frozen dinners and spaghetti sauce.
While factors such as weight and exercise play a role; salt and blood pressure go hand-in-hand: Eat too much, blood pressure rises. Eat less, it drops. Some 50 million Americans have high blood pressure-putting them at risk for heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease-and another 45
million are pre-hypertensive.
Food labels today set daily sodium consumption at 2,400 milligrams, the equivalent of a heaping teaspoon of salt.
Yet women today eat, on average, twice that amount, men even more.
The new recommendation is that most people get just 1,500 milligrams a day.
"We don't have our heads in the sand on this one," said Dr. Lawrence Appel, who co-authored the guidelines for the
institute, an independent scientific organization that advises the government. "We realize where we are is quite a distance from where we should be ... and there are commercial interests that don't want this to happen."
"People can cook and prepare Western-style diets that are at that level!" even though "it will take work right now," said Appel, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
Food makers countered that consumers will give up when
faced with such strict levels.
"Dietary recommendations for all Americans need to be realistic," said Stephanie Childs of the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
The Institute of Medicine report also:
Lists 2,300 milligrams of sodium as a maximal upper limit for the average adult's good health, but stresses that eating more than 1,500 is not recommended for anyone. In fact, because blood pressure rises with
age, it says people over 50 should strive to eat just 1,300 milligrams a day, and those over 70 just 1,200 milligrams.
Urges Americans to eat more potassium — 4,700 milligrams a day, roughly double current consumption. Potassium lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of kidney stones and bone loss. It is found in bananas, spinach, cantaloupe and numerous other fruits and vegetables; food sources are better than supplements.
Bombers kill Iraqi army volunteers
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A second suicide bombing in as many days killed up to 47 people yesterday, pushing the toll in the back-to-back attacks to 100. Again, Iraqis were the targets — this time, a crowd of volunteers for Iraq's new army — in an apparent campaign to wreck U.S. plans to transfer power by summer.
The U.S. military posted a $10 million bounty on a Jordanian militant suspected of organizing violence by foreign fighters and plotting an acceleration in attacks aimed at sparking a Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq.
The United States made public a letter to Al-Qaida leaders thought to be sent by the militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In it, he warns that militants are in a "race against time" to stop the June 30 handover of power, when Iraqi security forces will take a stronger role in battling the insurgency. The military announced Monday that it intercepted the document.
In yesterday's attack in Baghdad, an car packed with 300 to 500 pounds of explosives drove up to a crowd of Iraqis waiting outside an army recruitment center only a few
blocks from the heavily fortified Green Zone, headquarters of the U.S.administration.
The driver detonated the explosives, killing 47 people and wounding 55, the U.S.-led coalition said. The Irqi Interior Ministry put the toll at 46 dead.
The aim yesterday was clearly to kill Iraqis working with the U.S.-led coalition, rather than a particular religious group, because the crowd was likely a mix of Sunnis and Shiites.
But the suicide bombing yesterday targeted a mostly Shiite town, Iskandariyah, south of the capital. A truck carrying a similar amount of explosives blew up outside a police station, killing 53 Iraqis, including would-be recruits lined up to apply for jobs.
There was no claim of responsibility for the rare consecutive attacks, but Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said he saw a connection between al-Zarqawi, his memo and the recent bombings.
A U.S. official in Washington said al-Zarqawi's involvement could not be ruled out, but that the blasts were more likely the work of supporters of Saddam Hussein.
Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, president of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, said the attackers want to undermine security so that independence will be delayed. The frequency of attacks may also be a message to a U.N. team of experts now in Iraq to assess whether an early election can be held before the transfer of power, he said.
Yesterday's was at least the ninth major vehicle bombing in Iraq this year, and U.S. officials say that as the June 30 deadline nears, more attacks will likely follow.
The Americans have portrayed the letter from al-Zarqawi as a sign of insurgents' desperation to stop the handover. The letter complained that Iraqi guerrillas have not cooperated enough with foreign Islamic fighters and said attacks would be tougher to carry out once Iraqi security forces take a stronger role.
"The noose is beginning to tighten around the necks of the mujahedeen, and the future is frightening with the future deployment of more troops and police," it says. If the insurgency fails to prevent the handover, "then there will be no choice but to pack our bags and move to another land."
It describes Iraqi soldiers and police as an instrument of the Americans, and "God willing, we are determined to target them forcefully in the coming period."
The letter also outlines a strategy of kidnappings of U.S. soldiers and greater attacks on "collaborators," Kurds and particularly Shiites, saying "the best solution" is to spark war between Iraq's Shite majority and Sunni minority.
Since Jan. 1, at least 261 Iraqi civilians have been killed in major suicide attacks or car bombings, according to an AP tally based on reports issued by the U.S. military or Iraqi police.
At least 532 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 372 died as a result of hostile action.
The Baghdad recruitment center was surrounded by barbed wire with sandbagged posts in front. About 300 Iraqi were gathered outside the center's locked gates, and were completely exposed when the car exploded at about 7:25 a.m. Some were lined up to join the military, others waiting to depart for training in Jordan.
Approval granted for sex magazine
The Associated Press
BOSTON — Harvard University has approved a student magazine about sex that will feature art, sex advice and fiction — as well as photographs of undressed Harvard undergraduates.
"We are aware of the fact that some segments of the population would find the contents distasteful," said Associate Dean Judith H. Kidd, a member of the 14-person board that approves all student organizations. "However, the committee considered this to be an issue of freedom of speech."
The committee, made up of faculty, staff and students, approved H Bomb magazine Tuesday with a 12-0 vote, with two abstentions. The vote lets the magazine's publishers apply for funding but does not guarantee money; when it would be published is uncertain.
The magazine cannot take its photos on university property, a policy that applies for all of the school's undergraduate publications.
Vassar and Swarthmore colleges also have sex-themed magazines, though H Bomb is the first such publication for Harvard.
"What we are proposing is an outlet for literary and artistic expression that is both desired and needed, not a pornographic magazine."
Katharina C. Baldegg and Camilla H.Hrdy
Harvard students who proposed H Bomb
The students proposing the magazine, Katharina C. Baldegg and Camilla H. Hrdy, have unlisted phone numbers and email addresses, and could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press.
A Harvard Crimson newspaper story described H Bomb as a "porn magazine," but Baldegg and Hardy dispute that description in a statement released by a Harvard spokesman.
"What we are proposing is an outlet for literary and artistic expression that is both desired and needed, not a pornographic magazine," it read.
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