CDC Vital Signs - Where's the sodium?

full-text:
CDC Vital Signs - Where's the sodium?

February 2012

Where's the sodium?

There's too much in many common foods.

About 90% of Americans aged 2 years or older eat too much sodium.*

44% of the sodium we eat comes from 10 types of foods.

Reducing the sodium Americans eat by 1,200 mg per day on average added up to $20 billion a year in medical costs.

On this Page

• Introduction
• Problem
• Who's at Risk?
• What Can Be Done
• Science Behind this Issue
• Related Links
• Social Media
• Read Associated MMWR

About 90% of Americans eat more sodium than is recommended for a healthy diet. Too much sodium increases a person's risk for high blood pressure. High blood pressure often leads to heart disease and stroke. More than 800,000 people die each year from heart disease, stroke and other vascular diseases, costing the nation $273 billion health care dollars in 2010. Most of the sodium we eat comes from processed foods and foods prepared in restaurants. Sodium is already part of processed foods and cannot be removed. However, manufacturers and restaurants can produce foods with less sodium. In addition, you can select lower sodium foods when possible and you can cook more foods yourself, to better control how much sodium you eat.

* The words salt and sodium are sometimes used interchangeably because most of the sodium we eat is in the form of salt (sodium chloride). Some salts don't contain sodium.