Your health: What is your salt IQ?

Salt smarts

Which is lower in salt: a handful of potato chips or a whole-wheat English muffin? If you guessed the English muffin, you are incorrect. A whole-wheat muffin (without butter) contains 240 milligrams of sodium; 1 ounce of potato chips (about 15) contains 149 milligrams of sodium.

The muffin does pack a more nutritious punch and will keep you full longer, but if you are on a low-sodium diet, the chips are the better choice, at least in the short run, reports The Washington Post.

In a quiz on Goodhousekeeping.com, you can also compare the amount of sodium in common foods such as tomato soup, a hot dog and bun, cottage cheese, saltines, American cheese and spaghetti sauce.

Dealing with diabetes

There is no cure for Type 2 diabetes — insulin resistance or inadequate production of insulin — but it can be managed or prevented if it is diagnosed in the pre-diabetes stage. Diane Kress, a registered dietitian, sets out a three-step program for dealing with these conditions in her book, “The Diabetes Miracle.”

First, avoid foods that cause a rise in blood sugar, such as bread, fruit and sweets. That step should be taken for a minimum of eight weeks to calm down the overworked pancreas and slow down the body's insulin response.

In step two, Kress reintroduces carbohydrates in small amounts to help reprogram the body's metabolism. Step three focuses on figuring out a carbohydrate range for the long term that is specific for each person, and incorporates exercise.

Prostate problems

For years, data have shown that black men have much higher rates of prostate cancer than do white men and that they are more than twice as likely to die from the disease. The Washington Post reports that researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit have found four other racial disparities by studying a database of patients who underwent radical prostatectomy, which removes the prostate and area tissue:

Ÿ Black men more frequently needed blood transfusions during surgery (9 percent vs. 6 percent in whites), a signal of trouble during surgery.

Ÿ 1.7 percent of black men had serious complications, such as hard-to-control bleeding during surgery, compared with 1.3 percent of white men.

Ÿ After surgery, 13 percent of black men experienced complications such as infections, compared with 10.3 percent of white men.

Ÿ About 29 percent of black men stayed in the hospital longer than three days after surgery, compared with 21 percent of white men.