Less Salt Would Save Lives

Food companies could spare almost 1 million people from stroke or heart attack and save the U.S. health care system more than $32 billion by cutting back on the amount of salt used in processed products, a study finds.

California researchers say a 10 percent cut back in salt by the food companies showed a modest decline in blood pressure, preventing heart attacks and strokes in a computer simulation. The scientists propose a voluntary industry effort similar to one in the U.K. and a program proposed in New York City (the New York plan calls for a 25 percent salt reduction by food makers and restaurant chains).

"The numbers of affected people are huge, so even a small decrease is significant if you have large numbers of people involved," says Crystal Smith-Spangler, a study author and postdoctoral scholar at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Stanford University School of Medicine researchers also participated in the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The problem is many Americans consume a lot more salt than government health officials recommend: 2.3 grams a day.

"After tobacco control, the most cost-effective intervention to control chronic diseases (such as cardiovascular disease) might be reduction of sodium intake," Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says in an editorial that accompanies the study.

Food companies like Campbell Soup Co. and ConAgra Foods Inc. already are cutting the amount of salt in some of their products but the industry as a whole isn't taking such steps. And there are no signs that the companies want to enter into some voluntary program anytime soon.

One caveat: Americans love salt and reducing it in foods may drive people to products with more flavor, like high-fat offerings.