Better Health & Living: Article: Cutting Out Half The Salt Helps Your Heart

Issue: September 2008

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Cutting Out Half The Salt Helps Your Heart

by Sarí Harrar

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When 60 Iranian women and men agreed to go salt-free for six weeks in an effort to lower their blood pressure, most managed to trim their sodium intake by only half, yet their readings still dropped significantly, report researchers from Shiraz University.

Compared to a control group that merrily salted their meals and munched high-sodium processed foods (also the major source of sodium in American diets), the low-salt group slashed their systolic pressure by 12 points and diastolic pressure by about 7 points.
(If your blood pressure is slightly elevated, that reduction is enough to bring you back into a healthy range.)

Scientists checked on the volunteers’ sodium intake by measuring levels in their urine. They discovered that just 35 percent successfully followed a no-salt eating plan; the rest continued to eat some fast food, processed food, and breads with high sodium levels. But as long as they cut out at least a little salt, their pressure fell—good news if you can’t manage to banish salt completely from your table.