New salt intake recommendation has same health benefit as smoking cessation

Eliminating the salt shaker is only the tip of
the sodium iceberg. Photo.

The salt shaker has long been blamed for the elevated blood pressures of Americans; however, by restricting our use of the salt shaker, we have only lowered our risk for heart disease modestly. In fact, if you were to sieze all of the salt shakers from America's cupboards and table tops, salt use would still be a huge problem.

Americans currently eat 9 to 12 grams of salt per day, an amount far in excess of the 5 to 6 grams per day that is recommended by most health organizations, Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco, who presented new salt intake findings at an American Heart Association conference last week said in an interview with heartwire.com. According to Dr. Bibbins-Domingo, a 3-g daily reduction in the amount of salt consumed would be as benficial as if we could eliminate smoking in the population. Such a reduction would result in 6% fewer cases of new heart disease, 8% fewer heart attacks, and 3% fewer deaths.

The American Heart Association recommends getting no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. That's 2.3 grams. I think that's still too much; I think a safer amount is half that number, 1,200 milligrams.

"We can't just keep telling patients to get rid of the salt shaker, because that has very little effect," added Dr. Bibbins-Domingo. Eighty percent of the salt in the diets of Americans and of those in other Western nations comes from processed and prepared foods. 

One of the reasons why salt raises blood pressure, and thus contributes to heart disease, is that salt stiffens the arterial wall. Salt increases the thickness of the wall and may contribute to the accumulation of connective tissue inside the vessel. Salt also causes the body to retain water, and the excess water causes blood pressure to climb.

Eating a diet that is rich in whole foods, such as fresh vegetables and fruits, grains that have not been overly processed, and beans can help to improve the flexibililty of the vessel wall to lower blood pressure. Eliminating both the salt shaker and the processed and packaged foods from your kitchen is the first step toward having healthy blood vessels.

But don't expect these changes to occur overnight. Lowering blood pressure via proper diet may take longer than you expect.

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