'A little less' salt intake lowers heart attack, death rates

12 March 2009

A new study has found that a moderate decrease in daily salt intake could benefit and reduce the rates of heart disease and deaths.

Researchers at the American Heart Association's 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention said that for every gram of salt that is reduced in the diets daily, fewer new heart disease cases and fewer deaths would occur over a decade.

''A very modest decrease in the amount of salt - hardly detectable in the taste of food - can have dramatic health,'' said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Ph.D., M.D., M.A.S., lead author of the study and an assistant professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco. ''It was a surprise to see the magnitude of the impact on the population, given the very small reductions in salt that we were modeling.''

A 3-gram–a-day reduction in salt intake (about 1,200 mg of sodium) would result in 6 per cent fewer cases of new heart disease, 8 per cent fewer heart attacks, and 3 per cent fewer deaths.

For years, ample evidence has linked salt intake to high blood pressure and heart disease. Yet, salt consumption has risen by 50 per cent and blood pressure has risen by nearly the same amount since the 1970s, according to researchers.

Currently, Americans eat 9-12 grams of salt per day (or 3600-4800 mg of sodium). This amount is far in excess than recommended by most health organisations (5-6 grams / day of salt or 2000-2400 mg sodium). Each gram of salt contains 0.4 grams of sodium.