I have said in the past that the typical American eats over 6000 milligrams (or 6 GRAMS) of sodium per day. A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine (2010;362:590-9) means I’m going to have to update that figure: the latest estimates, for 2005-2006, estimate that every adult male in the United States eats an average of 10.4 grams of salt per day. Women, on the other hand, only eat a more modest (and I use that term facetiously) amount of 7.3 grams per day.
That’s a tablespoon and a half (4.5 teaspoons), for men, and about 1 tablespoon of salt (3 teaspoons) for women.
We know that reducing the amount of salt we eat can help reduce blood pressure and your risk of heart disease – from stroke to heart attack. If everyone in the United States over 35 years old reduced their salt intake by only 3 grams per day, what kind of impact would that have on our country’s overall health? Quantifying the Effects of Less Salt
