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Do recommended daily limits of things like sodium scale with calorie intake?

The AHA recommends no more than 2300 mg of sodium per day, but I’m curious to know if that number should be lower if one is reducing calories. Also curious to know if recommendations for things like saturated fat or added sugar should also scale with calorie intake.

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Answer

As far as I’m aware, the recommended daily intake for sodium (2300mg) and sugar (25-36g) is unaffected by the number of calories one consumes per day.

As for saturated fat, because the actual guideline is a percentage of total calories rather than a hard figure as is the case with sodium and sugar, the amount of saturated fat you should consume per day will depend on your calorie intake.

So because saturated fats should comprise less than 10 percent of total calories per the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, someone on a 2000 calorie diet should get 200 calories from saturated fat per day whereas saturated fat intake should be 150 calories for someone on a 1500 calorie diet.

Answer

Recommendations for saturated fat range from less than 10% to less than 5% of total caloric intake depending on the source. Added sugars and amounts of each macronutrient have percentages as well. They use these percentages to help scale it. Less than 2300 mg of sodium is universal though.

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