A professor and her colleagues at the University of Toronto recently authored a study investigating how consumers interpret "low sodium" labels on food.
Often, many people are confused as to what the actual health benefits are in eating a low sodium foods. They may know that it's healthier, but aren't quite sure why.
"Governments have gone out of their way to set different criteria for the different types of claims," Mary L'Abbe, one of the co-authors, said. "But the consumer wouldn't necessarily see that."
As NPR points out, the FDA does go after companies who don't have data to back up health claims, but they do not do it for sodium. Canada has similar labeling practices to the FDA.
L'Abbe and her colleagues set out to conduct a study about consumer knowledge on the health benefits of low sodium foods.
As a test, they used a fake tomato soup can with varying health claims on it.
Out of the 506 Canadians they polled, many found that the label claiming low sodium prevented disease or lowered blood pressure "made the product more appealing," according to NPR.
About one-third of the people polled in the study admitted to having high blood pressure.
However, people were still confused as to the actual health benefits of low sodium.
"When asked about a variety of health issues, including losing weight, constipation, and diabetes, participants in the survey said that lower-sodium products would prevent all of them. Alas, reducing sodium helps only to reduce blood pressure," according to NPR.
"What we saw there was a halo effect [with the low-sodium claim]," said lead author, Christina Wong. "They see a whole range of health benefits that are totally unrelated to the nutrient."
