The Food Industry's Overuse Of Salt Contributes To Almost 100,000 American Deaths Every Year

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/05/1827821/food-industry-salt/

by Sy Mukherjee, thinkprogress.org
April 5th 2013

In a new study published in the online edition of the British Medical Journal, researchers write that a 50 percent reduction in daily salt intake “could prevent approximately 100,000 deaths from heart attack and stroke in the United States every year.” Curbing salt intake by that high a margin is certainly a mean feat — but not because Americans are saturating their food with sodium. Rather, study authors suggest that the real culprits are food makers who douse their products with harmful levels of salt.

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Last month, Harvard researchers conducting a separate study also found that excess sodium was linked to one in ten American deaths.

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“Eighty percent of the salt that we eat is added by the food industry,” study author and professor of cardiovascular medicine Graham MacGregor told FoxNews.com. Those numbers are borne out by CDC data showing that the vast majority of salt consumption derives from processed foods:

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