In February, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article* that highlighted salt as one of the major contributing factors to heart disease in the United States. The authors estimated that a 3g reduction in salt (or 2300mg reduction in sodium) intake per day per person would reduce annual new cases of coronary heart disease by 60,000-120,000 and heart attack by 54,000-99,000, thus saving $10-24 billion in healthcare costs each year. That's a lot of saved lives and a lot of saved money! In fact, the authors suggested that as a nation, the U.S. population would receive a benefit from reducing salt intake that is about equal to all the various anti-high blood pressure therapies combined.