How many heart attacks and strokes would we need to prevent to convince Americans to eat less salt?

What will it take to get Americans – and the food industrial complex – to get serious about taking some of the salt out of our diets?

In September, a study in the American Journal of Health Promotion calculated that Americans could eliminate 11 million cases of hypertension, save $18 billion in medical costs and add 312,000 years to our collective lives by reducing our daily sodium intake from about 3,300 milligrams per day to the recommended daily maximum of 2,300 mg.

In January, another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that excising 1,200 mg of sodium from our daily diets would prevent up to 120,000 cases of cardiovascular disease, 66,000 strokes, 99,000 heart attacks and reduce annual deaths from any cause by as much as 92,000. That study found that the cost savings would add up to as much as $24 billion and save as many as 392,000 years of life.

Still not convinced? This week, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System entered the fray with their own analysis.

They used a computer model to estimate would what happen if consumers and food-makers here copied a British salt-reduction campaign. Their conclusions: Americans between the ages of 40 and 85 would cut their salt intake by 9.5%, preventing strokes in 513,885 people and heart attacks in 480,358 others. Total savings to the healthcare system would top $32 billion, according to their study published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

They also ran a computer model using another popular idea – a sin tax aimed at salt. The hypothetical salt tax was less effective, cutting salt intake by only 6% and preventing 327,892 strokes and 306,173 heart attacks. The researchers said they thought the salt tax was less feasible than voluntary efforts by the food industry to cut sodium out of their products.

The researchers also noted that cutting back on salt could have the unintended consequence of motivating consumers to eat more foods made with fat and sugar, which present their own health risks.

You can read the study here, or check out the summary for patients here.

For those who are finally motivated to cut some of the salt out of their diets – or at least give it a try – check out this list of helpful hints from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. And if you still need a little push, check out this story from the Health section about the perils of ingesting too much sodium.

-- Karen Kaplan

Photo: Would you rather have a little salt or a heart attack? Credit: Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[DM]

How about you do this:

1) Pay attention to your own life
2) Let other people live the way they want.
3) Shut...up.

How I live my life is not your concern you complete idiot.

[LG]

DM-
You live in a SOCIETY of people;therefore, you need to stop thinking you're allowed to live your life however you want. That's the kind of thinking that created our current greedy, capitalist society, destroying anything and using up natural resources just to make money.
If you don't like your society's rules, do something about it. I don't agree with MANY of society's rules, but I definitely understand the need for rules and people having to conform to norms. For instance, if all Americans keep eating out so much or eating junk food, who will end up paying for the high cost of their health care? Why should healthy, intelligent Americans be forced to pay for lazy, ignorant fools' choices?

[nessa]

I actually have a LOW blood pressure problem and sometimes eating extra salt is beneficial.

[M]

DM , when childishly calling someone an idiot, it is best not to sound like one yourself. Lighten up. You probably should just take your own advice under your point # 3. (LOL)

I realize that I may be stating the obvious here (except to DM), but you can always add salt to your diet, however, you can't remove it from food once it has been loaded with it. Many people have undiagnosed asymptomatic health problems caused by, or aggravated by, excess salt. Just avoiding ready made foods, or eating out, isn't the answer because many of the ingredients purchased to make tasty meals at home are laced with a great deal of unneeded salt that can't be removed.

It is very selfish to require all people to eat excess salt just because some can't be bothered to salt their own food according to their taste. Besides, most people don't want all food to be made salt free or low salt, they just want more low or no salt alternatives to be made available. There is no need for a tax, or to try and force everyone to eat a very low salt diet. As long as there are ample choices, people can decide for themselves what they want to eat, and raise their children to eat lower salt diets that reflect today's less active lifestyle.

[Shelly Walker]

It's not the Salt - nor the fat, pple, it's the Sugar!! -and the processed grains that readily turn to sugar - and the insulin it releases!! Wake up, please!! I've been on proteins and veggies, w/some fruit thrown in, for a couple of months, and guess what?? Losing wt - yay! BP's totally normal, after being high - and, I still use the same amts of sea salt that I always have! But no chips, cookies, junk in sight!!! Not too hard - and not 'rocket science'!! Jeez!:)

[Pablito]

I don't want a single taxpayer dollar going to people who choose to kill themselves with Fritos. I live a healthy life and make intelligent choices about what I eat.

I'd love to live on Cool Ranch Doritos, Ho-Hos, and orange soda, but an iota of self-control and basic nutritional knowledge keep me from becoming a six-figure burden on the system.

The "idiot" you speak of would be someone who feels it's his right to eat pork rinds 24/7, then expect prompt, practically free health care at the taxpayers' expense. No thanks.

[DH]

While you're referring to published articles, you might want to refer to Michael Alderman's article in the February 3rd Journal of the American Medical Association. He reviews the available studies and concludes that none of them actually shows that sodium reduction will be beneficial to the whole population and, as important, that it will not have unforeseen adverse effects. He argues that large-scale, long-term studies can provide answers to these questions and that these studies have not been done.

[Raul F Schibber]

Why is it so hard to find foods low in fat and low in salt in supermarkets. The Sociedad Argentina de Cardiologia through radio, TV and magazines insists to the citizens on reducing fat and salt and it has made the food industry to produce healthier foods. In the supermarkets of Argentina I can choose healthier foods. Now I'm studying for a few months in the USA I find it difficult to get healthier food.

[MS]

There are four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics, and computer models. Karen, you have to be able to tell the difference between statistics and models based upon assumptions and actual evidence. If you check the actual evidence from the CDC, you will see that our cardiovascular death rates have plummeted in the last 30 years, despite no reductions in salt intakes. If you check life expectancy figures around the world, you will see that the longest lives societies consume the most salt (Japan and Switzerland), while the shortest lived (Yanomamo and Xingu of Brazil) eat the least salt. The Italian Mediterranean diet has 25-40% more salt than the US diet, yet their cardiovasular figures are excellent.

The two major medical meta-analyses of reliable evidence concluded that there was no measurable long-term health benefit associated with population-wide salt reduction. Because statistical studies and computer models cannot replace actual clinically-derived facts, they must be viewed with great skepticism even if they reinforce the urban mythology about salt reduction. And if you believe everything our medical institutions are saying without any critical analysis, then for certain you would have been one of those journalists thirty years ago exhorting women to actively embrace hormone replacment therapy, because, like salt reduction, those institutions and the urban mythology said it would save thousands of lives.

[Michael Aaron]

Visit http://www.nostroke911.com/ for more information on strokes and identifying the symptoms.