Eat less salt, cut heart attack risk

London: Eating a less salty diet daily can reduce the risk of heart attacks by five percent, says a study.

Salt is essential not only to life, but to good health. However, experts already know that more of it can raise blood pressure and high blood pressure increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Eating less salt can cut cardiovascular disease risk by a quarter and fatal heart disease by a fifth, the new study by US researchers' show.

Six grams of salt is about a teaspoonful and the ideal daily intake of salt should not be more than six grams per individual, they said.

The team from Boston looked at 3,126 people who had high to normal blood pressure or pre-hypertension and found that a quite small reduction in their salt intake had a big effect on risks, reported BBC news online.

In the trials, participants reduced their salt (sodium) intake by about 25 per cent to 35 per cent, from about 10 grams to seven grams.

Those who cut back tended to stick to a lower salt diet in the long term, the researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital found.

Graham MacGregor, a consultant in cardiovascular medicine at London's St. George's Hospital and chairman of the Consensus Action Group on Salt, said: "This is a very important study.

"It shows that if people reduce their salt intake it will reduce the number of people suffering from heart attacks, strokes and heart failure. We did not have that type of evidence before,” he added.