American Morning
How can we avoid salt in our diet?
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From Arthur
Birmingham, Alabama
I saw your report earlier in the week the about high salt content in restaurant foods. I end up consuming salty foods at home too! My wife adds it to everything – even to the water she boils our pasta in. What are some alternatives I can suggest?
Answer
Arthur, thanks for writing in! Sodium content is often not something people look for on labels, or consciously think about when preparing their meals. Even many low-fat, low-calorie items have very high levels of sodium. Then, of course, the salt shaker sitting on most kitchen tables doesn’t help the matter. You see we’re all creatures of habit. If a person grows up always adding salt and pepper to each meal, it becomes second nature. Before even tasting a meal, many people add salt to without thinking twice.
Our bodies do need some sodium. It helps regulate your body’s fluid, aids in muscle function. But too much sodium can cause a siren to go off internally. When excess salt flows through your bloodstream, your kidneys get defensive. They release a hormone that triggers blood vessels to contract, which causes your blood pressure to rise. From there it’s a ripple effect on your health. High blood pressure can cause a heart attack or stroke among other conditions. Something as seemingly small as reducing sodium levels in your diet could save your life. In fact, the American Medical Association estimates that 150,000 lives could be saved in the United States annually if people cut their salt intake in half.
There are ways to cut back when cooking at home without losing flavor. Start by getting the salt shaker off the dinner table. As I mentioned earlier, people often add it to meals just because it’s there, not because the food needs it. Keep the shaker in the cabinet, and odds are your whole family will inadvertently use it less.
Marijuana potency surpasses 10 percent, U.S. says
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By Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers
OXFORD, Mississippi (CNN) - The average potency of marijuana, which has risen steadily for three decades, has exceeded 10 percent for the first time, the U.S. government will report on Thursday.
Scientists working for the government predict that potency, as measured by the drug's concentration of the psychoactive ingredient THC, will continue to rise.
At the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project, where thousands of samples of seized marijuana are tested every year, project director Mahmoud ElSohly said some samples have THC levels exceeding 30 percent.
Average THC concentrations will continue to climb before leveling off at 15 percent or 16 percent in five to 10 years, ElSohly predicted.
The stronger marijuana is of particular concern because high concentrations of THC have the opposite effect of low concentrations, officials say.
In addition, while experienced marijuana users may limit their intake of potent marijuana, young and inexperienced users may not moderate their intake and possibly suffer from dysphoria, paranoia, irritability and other negative effects.
Medicare is the real danger, not social security
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The front page of the New York Times today reads: Recession Drains Social Security and Medicare. The latest report card on the social safety net is not encouraging. The officials who oversee the program forecast Tuesday that the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2037 — four years earlier than estimated last year.
Bob Weiner, former chief of staff for the House Committee on Aging, says when it comes to fear over Social Security, it's much ado about nothing. He joined John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday.
John Roberts: You say everybody has it wrong on the alarm bells being sounded about Social Security. How do we have it wrong?
Bob Weiner: Not everyone has it wrong. There are a lot of experts in Social Security who understand that this is a program that has been the most successful one in the history of American social programs – taking half of senior citizens out of poverty. Half of seniors rely on Social Security for 90% of their income.
Roberts: What do we have wrong, though?
Weiner: The program is solvent for the next 30 years. Once, and even then, when they say insolvent, it still will be able to pay 75% of the benefits even under the worst economic model. And the economic model that they're using is the crash that we're in right now. So they've taken the worst case scenario, instead of recognizing that the economy will improve and that we’ll go back to a solvency situation with Social Security.
President Obama's new take on healthcare reform
John P. Avlon is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast. Previously, he served as Chief Speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
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By John Avlon
Special to CNN
Something’s happening on healthcare reform – and it isn’t just déjà vu all over again.
Democratic presidents since Truman have wrestled with healthcare reform. Jimmy Carter 's attempts died at the hands of congressional liberals who wanted a Canadian-style single-payer system. These advocates of all-or-nothing got nothing. Bill Clinton’s ambitions fell under criticism of its secretive top-down policy approach and a successful industry effort to stigmatize it as “socializing one-seventh of the economy.”
You’ve got to give this to President Obama – the man is a student of history and he’s determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Yesterday, he brought health care industry executives and union leaders to the White House in an example of his patented ability to bring diverse interests to the same table. They emerged with a voluntary agreement to cut costs by $2 trillion over the next 10 years, which could eventually translate to a savings of $2500 per family. As impressive as the promised savings, the odd coupling was arguably more impressive: some of the same folks who were fighting healthcare reform a decade and a half ago are today eager participants.
They seem to have bought into President Obama’s reframing of healthcare reform beyond individual heartstring stories and toward a more hard-headed argument based on fiscal responsibility and international competitiveness. It is an argument that business understands.
Healthcare reform legislation is still in development, but President Obama is already cultivating a much broader coalition that presidents have in the past. In his prime time press conference marking his first 100 days in office, he even indicated one substantive area of bipartisan cooperation he had discussed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – putting medical malpractice reform in any healthcare package to reduce costs.
The devil will, of course, be in the details – but some kind of a public-private partnership to address the 47 million uninsured Americans seems in the cards for Obama’s ambitious opening year.
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