Excess Intake of Salt Linked to 2.3 Million Deaths Worldwide: Study

Not all pay close attention to the amount of salt added in their diet. Many find it difficult to shake the habit of adding extra salt to their food. Most Americans consume excess of salt, nearly twice as much as they need, and this has a drastic effect on their health.

Data according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that Americans aged 2 and older consume 3,436 mg sodium per day.

The latest study will make you shake the salt habit now for a longer life. The new finding states that in the year 2010, close to 2.3 million people in the world died due to disease linked to excess salt intake.

For this study, the researchers observed data of 247 surveys of adult sodium intake that was gathered from 1990-2010. They then checked for the association between the quantity of sodium people consumed and its affect on increasing cardiovascular disease. For this, they performed 107 trials that measured how blood pressure was affected by sodium. They also performed a meta analysis on how the difference in blood pressure affects the person's chance of developing cardiovascular diseases. This was compared with the optimal amount of sodium for adults i.e., 1,000 mg per day of sodium.

The researchers noticed that a million of the deaths occurred in people belonging to ages 69 or younger. At least 8-10 percent of the deaths occurred due to excess consumption of salt in low- and middle-income countries.

"National and global public health measures, such as comprehensive sodium reduction programs, could potentially save millions of lives," Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., Dr.P.H., lead author of the study and co-director of the Program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology said in a press statement. Mozaffarian is also the associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Ukraine had the highest death rate of 2,109 due to excess intake of salt, followed by Russia at 1,803 and Egypt at 836. The lowest death rates were seen in Qatar (73), Kenya (78), and United Arab Emirates (134).

The study was presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2013 Scientific Sessions.