[blackethylene]

For people over 50, and for African-Americans, the current recommended intake is even lower - 1,500 milligrams per day.

I am intrigued by the current guideline for African-Americans. Does anyone know what is the rationale behind this stricter limit?

[tokenadult]

It's an epidemiological observation that the socially defined "African-American" (also known as "black") racial group in the United States has higher rates of high blood pressure than other officially reported groups. Interestingly, west African people in west Africa do not appear to have higher rates of blood pressure, according to a scientist who studies comparative epidemiology.[1] That's always the trick in group comparisons: to find out if a group difference has a genetic or environmental cause.[2]

[1] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=no...

[2] http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...

[erichmond]

Do you know how this plays out in mixed race people? This is a question that no doctor has ever given me a straight answer for. If I have an african-american father and a european mother, do I need to worry about this?

Also, what about people who have a single grandparent who is African-American. Does this kind of thing apply to them?

[tokenadult]

This indeed is one of the problems with "race" classification. As the Census Bureau itself says, "The U.S. Census Bureau collects race data in accordance with guidelines provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and these data are based on self-identification. The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as 'American Indian' and 'White.' People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race."

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_RHI525211.htm

I was a recipient of the official American Community Survey from the Census just in the last week. I filled out the survey according to questions I was asked. For race, for all of my family members, I put in "other" as the race and filled in "human" for the response below that. (For the decennial census back in 2010, we filled out the form in the expected way by the federal definitions, holding our noses while we did that.) Both times, we filled in national ancestry according to the known countries of origin of ancestors, which is quite a diverse mixture for my children.

As Henry Harpending wrote back in 2006: "On the other hand, information about the race of patients will be useless as soon as we discover and can type cheaply the underlying genes that are responsible for the associations. Can races be enumerated in any unambiguous way? Of course not, and this is well known not only to scientists but also to anyone on the street." Chapter 16: Anthropological Genetics: Present and Future in Anthropological Genetics: Theory, Methods and Applications (2006), edited by Michael Crawford.

[SiVal]

A greater incidence of high blood pressure, which salt is believed to exacerbate.

[MrJagil]

What explains this incidence? Is it genetic?

EDIT: Vixen explains it below, if a vitamin-D deficiency correlates to high blood pressure that is.

[JulianMorrison]

I prescribe a diet of not being subject to the constant stress of racist micro-aggressions.

[vixen99]

People with dark skin can experience vitamin D deficiency in northern climates. One of the many symptoms is hypertension. Some estimates are that you need 10 times more sun exposure to produce the same amount of vitamin D as a person with pale skin.

[JulianMorrison]

This does not suggest reducing salt, but rather supplementing vitamin D. It also doesn't rule out stress as a distinct, parallel cause.

[vixen99]

Who says it does?

[reitanqild]

Agree with the part of constant stress.[0][1] Some full moons ago I took pills that among other effects also had a side effect of increasing blood pressure. Which they absolutely did to me until one day I postponed them in the last minute only to feel the side effect the same way as usual a few minutes later when they should have reached the blood stream.

From that day that side effects disappeared. Our brains plays games with us. About 30%[1] of us seems more prone to this[2] than others.

[0]: context: JulianMorrisons post was downvoted when I commented. I read it as funny, not SJW, and I agree that constant stress seems to be a big issue.)

[1]: See vixen99s explanation for what seems like the dry facts about the link between skin color and hypertension

[2]: or was it 60%? I can't remember.

[3]: placebo and nocebo I think

[JulianMorrison]

I am 100% SJW and proud of it.