Americans Over-salted
By: Charlotte Ames
Updated: February 14, 2013
Packaged and restaurant foods are to blame for almost 80 percent of the salt in our diets, but now many foods are getting healthier. After a nationwide initiative, 21food companies including Kraft, Heinz and Subway joined leaders in New York City to announce they've lowered salt in their products.
Most people consume a teaspoon of salt a day. That's more than double the amount recommended. New research from University of California San Francisco shows as many as half a million lives could be saved over ten years if Americans reduced salt 40-percent.
Doctors say high salt in your diet or high sodium is one of the reasons why people have high blood pressure. So for many people,lowering sodium can lower blood pressure and then prevent stroke, kidney disease, and heart attacks.
The Centers for Disease Control has about a third of Americans have high blood pressure, but fewer than half of them have it under control.


