You and salt: not so perfect together

Ed Zimney, MD

Health and Medical News You can Use

Since nearly 70 percent of adult Americans have risk factors that warrant their reducing the amount of sodium they consume each day, the odds are high that you should pay attention to the following information and heed its advice. And since the national average daily sodium intake is already much higher than what’s recommended even for the 30 percent of people who don’t have risk factors, the odds are overwhelming that you are currently eating too much salt every day; the only question being how much you need to cut back?

First let’s look at the 70 percent of adults who have risk factors. The risk factors are:

High blood pressure (also known as hypertension) -31 percent of adults
All people over age 40 - 34 percent of adults
All black Americans – 4 percent of adults

The people in these groups either have high blood pressure or are at risk for developing it. In turn, high blood pressure increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, the number 1 and number 3 leading causes of death in the United States. And greater consumption of sodium increases the risk for high blood pressure. In fact, salt consumption and blood pressure go hand in hand.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommended that American adults should consume no more than 2,300 mg/day of sodium (that’s the equivalent of about one teaspoon of table salt). But the national average for sodium consumption at that time was 3,436 mg/day, Read more...