Get the Scoop on Sodium and Salt

How does sodium affect your health?

Sodium is a mineral that supports vital functions. It’s regulated by your kidneys and helps control your body’s fluid balance. It also affects nerve impulses and muscle function.

How does sodium affect my heart?

Excess sodium in your bloodstream pulls water into your blood vessels, increasing the amount of blood inside them. When more blood flows through your blood vessels, blood pressure increases. It’s like turning up the water supply to a garden hose — the pressure in the hose increases as more water is blasted through it. Increased blood flow also makes the heart work harder to pump more blood through the body.

Over time, high blood pressure may overstretch or injure the blood vessel walls and speed up the buildup of plaque that can block blood flow. 

High blood pressure is known as the “silent killer” because its symptoms aren’t always obvious. More than half of the U.S. adults have high blood pressure. It is estimated that 61% of U.S. adults will have high blood pressure by 2050.

Certain factors may influence your blood pressure when you eat salt:

• Unhealthy diet
• Physical inactivity
• Too much alcohol intake
• Tobacco use
• Family history 
• Age
• Weight
• Medical conditions such as diabetes or chronic kidney disease
• If you are salt-sensitive, meaning your body responds more strongly to salt intake, sodium may have a more significant impact on your blood pressure compared to those without this sensitivity. 

Where does sodium come from?

Table salt is a combination of two minerals — sodium (about 40%) and chloride (60%). 

More than 70% of the sodium we eat comes from packaged, prepared and restaurant foods due to salt added for flavoring, stabilizing, preserving and reducing bacterial risk. The rest of the sodium in our diet comes naturally in food (about 5-10%) or from salt added when cooking food or to our plates from the saltshaker (about 10-15%). 

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that we consume less than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of sodium daily. Yet, most of us typically consume about 50% more, or 3,400 mg. 

The top food sources of sodium in our diets are:

• Sandwiches
• Rice, pasta and other grain-based dishes
• Starchy and non-starchy vegetables
• Meat, poultry and seafood dishes
• Pizza
• Soup
• Chips, crackers and savory snacks
• Desserts and sweet snacks
• Cold cuts and cured meats
• Breads and tortillas
• Eggs
• Breakfast cereals and bars 

It may come as a surprise that some of the foods are on this list because they may not taste salty. Sodium is used in food in many different forms for various purposes, such as curing meat, baking, thickening, retaining moisture, enhancing flavor and acting as a preservative.

Try these tips for reducing the sodium in your diet. 

• Cook more meals at home where you can control the sodium intake.
• Flavor your food with herbs and spices instead of salt.
• Rinse canned beans and vegetables to remove excess sodium.
• Read the Nutrient Facts label of similar foods and compare the sodium content per serving. Choose those with the least amount of sodium.
• Look for foods labeled “sodium free,” “low sodium” or “reduced sodium.”

Here are some examples of the average amount of sodium in a few popular foods:

• 1 slice cheese pizza = 600 milligrams (mg) sodium 
• 1 chicken tender strip = 800 milligrams (mg) sodium   
• 1 slice cooked bacon = 97.5 milligrams (mg) sodium 

What are the benefits of cutting down on sodium?

Even if you don’t have high blood pressure, eating less sodium can help blunt the rise in blood pressure that occurs as you age.  It also may reduce your risk of heart attack, heart failure, stroke, kidney disease, osteoporosis, stomach cancer and even headaches. 

One study estimates that if sodium intake is reduced by 30%, about 40 million deaths worldwide could be delayed over a 25-year period. Another study showed that following a low-sodium diet with a total of 500 mg sodium daily for a week significantly reduced blood pressure in 70% of participants and systolic blood pressure was reduced by 7 to 8 mmHg. 

What are the FDA sodium targets?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) supports the food industry’s volunteer sodium average intake target from 3,400 mg to 3,000 mg and eventually to 2,750mg/day. Some food companies are already reducing sodium in many of their products. Other food manufacturers and restaurants will lower the amount of sodium in their foods to meet the new targets. That means healthier foods for you and millions of other people.

The FDA plans to review its guidance to the food industry and take further steps to lower sodium in the food supply to meet the 2,300 mg of sodium limit recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Is sodium really that bad?

So, what’s the bottom line? The science behind sodium reduction is clear. Significant evidence links excess sodium intake with high blood pressure, which increases the risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure.