Reducing Kids’ Salt Intake May Lower Soft Drink Consumption

Children who eat less salt drink fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks and may significantly lower their risks for obesity, elevated blood pressure and later-in-life heart attack and stroke, researchers reported in the print and on line issue of “Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.”

“We found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank less fluid,” said Dr. Feng J. He, M.D., lead author of the study. “From our research, we estimated that 1 gram of salt cut from their daily diet would reduce fluid intake by 100 grams per day.”

“If children aged 4 to 18 years cut their salt intake by half (i.e., an average reduction of 3 grams a day), there would be a decrease of approximately two sugar-sweetened soft drinks per week per child, so each child would decrease calorie intake by almost 250 kcal per week,” he said.

Read more about the study on the American Heart Association website.