Slight Cut in Salt Intake Would Mean Fewer Heart Attacks, Deaths

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Cutting Americans' salt intake by as little as a gram per day could save thousands of people from heart disease and death, a new study suggests.
(ABC News Photo Illustration/Getty)

WEDNESDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- If Americans cut just one gram of salt from their daily diet, there would be 250,000 fewer new cases of heart disease and more than 200,000 fewer deaths over a decade, a new study suggests.
And, though doctors have long known that too much salt is linked with high blood pressure and heart disease, Americans are using 50 percent more salt than they did in the 1970s -- and blood pressure rates have risen by almost the same percentage, the study authors said.
"We found that very small reductions in salt intake would have very large health benefits in the U.S. population," said lead researcher Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.
"We found that everyone in the U.S. would benefit, but the benefits would be particularly great for African-Americans, who are more likely to have high blood pressure and whose blood pressure is more likely to be sensitive to salt," she said.