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Cutting salt has health benefits

Do you eat a lot of salt in your daily diet? A new study that was conducted by scientists from the University of California, states that eating less salt can be beneficial to your health.

The study noted that people who are at risk for heart issues can benefit a great deal from not having such a large salt intake.

Reducing salt intake can help decrease blood pressure which helps the heart.

The study also found that consuming half a teaspoon less salt per day is the key to being healthier.

It would cause between fifty and one hundred thousand fewer heart attacks every year and between forty thousand and ninety thousand fewer deaths every year.

Many foods that consumers eat contain a high salt content. Adding more herbs instead of salt can add flavor to your food and reduce the need for salt to add taste to the meals.

If you want to be healthier then avoid the salt shaker and try seasoning your foods naturally. This just may save your life someday.

An annual drop of as many as 120,000 cases of heart disease, 66,000 instances of stroke and 99,000 heart attacks caused by high blood pressure after a 3-g-per-day reduction in sodium.

The advantages, not surprisingly, were more profound for African Americans, who are more likely to develop high blood pressure and may be more sensitive to the hypertensive effects of salt than other ethnic groups, and for the elderly, since blood vessels stiffen with age, which can lead to higher blood pressure.

‘Everyone in the U.S. is consuming salt far in excess of what is good for them,’ says lead author Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of UCSF. ‘What we are suggesting is that a population-wide effort to reduce salt intake even slightly will have health benefits.’

The team conducted a computer-based analysis to determine the impact of a 3-g-per-day reduction in sodium intake on rates of heart disease and death. They also calculated the cost savings emerging from the amount of disease that would be avoided because of lower blood pressure.

It's enough to prevent you from reaching for the salt shaker at your next meal, but unfortunately, it may not be that easy to keep sodium levels in check.

Almost 75% of the salt we consume each day comes from processed and prepared foods, such as breads, cereals and dairy products — sources we have very little control over, not to mention awareness of. (You can easily get 3 g of sodium in a single sandwich with two pieces of bread, some deli meat and cheese.)

The average American man consumes 10.4 g of salt each day; the average woman, 7.3 g. The daily recommended amount, according to government nutrition experts, is 6 g.

That means that even if most men were to cut 3 g of salt out of their diet each day, they would still be consuming more than the recommended daily allowance of sodium.

‘This really has to go beyond just individual efforts in counseling patients and people in communities to lower salt in their diet’ she says.

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