Children may also be getting too much salt

Like most adults, many children are getting too much salt in their diets, a new U.S. study says. And, as in adults, that extra sodium might be increasing their blood pressure levels, particularly in children above normal weight.

Sodium intake is positively associated with systolic blood pressure and risk for pre-high blood pressure and high blood pressure among U.S. children and adolescents, and the link may be strong among the overweight or obese, wrote Quanhe Yang and colleagues at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Not everyone is convinced, though, that sodium is the only factor raising children's blood pressure.

"This study looked at one nutrient in isolation. There was no emphasis on the quality of the diet," said dietitian Lauren Graf of the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx.

Results of the study were published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Government dietary guidelines recommend consuming no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium daily, and that most people would be fine with significantly less. -- HealthDay