Coordinated efforts to reduce sodium in commonly consumed packaged and prepared foods could yield substantial public health benefits by creating healthier food environments by default, according to two new research studies published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. The studies project that lowering salt content in these foods could significantly improve cardiovascular health and prevent many cases of heart disease, stroke, and deaths in the general population in France and the U.K.
The French study focused on a 2025 voluntary agreement between the government and bread producers to lower salt content. Bread, especially the baguette, is culturally central in France and traditionally contained about 25% of the total daily recommended salt intake. Researchers estimated that full compliance with the sodium-reduction targets would decrease daily salt intake by 0.35 grams per person, leading to slightly lower blood pressure across the population. Their modeling suggests this could prevent approximately 1,186 deaths annually, with hospitalizations for ischemic heart disease dropping by 1.04% and for hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke falling by 1.05% and 0.88%, respectively.
"This salt-reduction measure went completely unnoticed by the French population - no one realized that bread contained less salt," said Clemence Grave, M.D., lead author of the French study and an epidemiologist at the French National Public Health Agency. "Our findings show that reformulating food products, even with small, invisible changes, can have a significant impact on public health." The study's modeling indicated men received the greatest benefits across all age groups, with 0.87% of heart diseases and strokes prevented among men compared to 0.63% among women.
The U.K. study examined the potential impact of meeting 2024 sodium-reduction targets for 84 grocery food categories and 24 out-of-home categories like burgers, curries, and pizza. Researchers found that fully meeting these goals could reduce average salt intake from about 6.1 grams to 4.9 grams per day—a 17.5% reduction per person. Over a 20-year period, this could prevent about 103,000 cases of ischemic heart disease and approximately 25,000 strokes in the U.K. The blood pressure reductions would also translate into roughly 243,000 additional quality-adjusted life years and £1 billion in savings for the U.K.'s National Health Service.
"If U.K. food companies had fully met the 2024 salt reduction targets, the resulting drop in salt intake across the population could have prevented tens of thousands of heart attacks and strokes, saved substantially in health costs and significantly improved public health," said Lauren Bandy, D.Phil., lead author of the U.K. study and a researcher at the University of Oxford. "Strengthening and enforcing salt reduction policies both in the U.K. and globally could unlock these benefits." Both studies acknowledge limitations, including reliance on modeling assumptions and self-reported dietary data, but their conclusions reinforce the importance of population-level strategies.
Daniel W. Jones, M.D., chair of the 2025 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology High Blood Pressure Guideline, said the results are "absolutely relevant" to the U.S. and any country where much food is prepared outside the home. "This 'national' approach to limiting salt content in commercially prepared foods is a key strategy," he noted. "Though sodium reduction makes small improvements in blood pressure at the individual level, these small changes in individuals result in major improvements in a large population." The American Heart Association recommends a daily intake of no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium, with an ideal limit of 1,500 mg for most adults, while the World Health Organization recommends less than 2,000 mg per day.
