Reducing Your Salt Intake Could Lower Your Heart Disease Risks

Research shows that even modest reductions can also boost the effectiveness of antihypertensive medications.

Published: July 1, 2010

If Americans could reduce their average daily salt intake by as little as half a teaspoon (three grams), an estimated 100,000 heart attacks could be avoided annually, a recent study revealed. In the study, published in the Feb. 18 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that the benefits of salt reduction could be on par with those achieved by reductions in smoking.