早在几十年前，卫生官员就开始敦促美国人少吃点盐。
　　It's 2009 -- several decades after health officials began urging Americans to cut down on salt.

　　你知道自己每天的食盐消耗量吗？
　　Do you know how much you're consuming?

　　普通美国人每天的食盐消耗量约为3,400毫克，远远高于美国膳食指南(U.S. Dietary Guidelines)建议的2,300毫克，同时也是人体所需水平的15倍。

　　If you're a typical American, it's about 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day. That's well beyond the 2,300 mg recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. And it's 15 times as much as the human body requires.

　　自从二十世纪七十年代以来，食盐的平均消耗量已经上升了大约50%，主要原因是我们食用的便利食品大大增加。食品加工商在减少脂肪和糖份的同时，他们通常会增加食盐的剂量。
　　Average sodium intake has increased about 50% since the 1970s, largely because we're eating more convenience foods. And as makers of processed food have cut down on fat and sugar, they've often added more salt.

　　不过，食盐过量可能不利于人体健康。
　　But all this sodium can be bad for your health.

　　过多摄取盐份可能会引起骨质疏松症、肾脏衰竭和胃癌。更为糟糕的是，它会引起高血压，这是心脏病和中风的主要诱因。每年死于这两种疾病的美国人高达85万之多。

　　Excess salt has been linked to osteoporosis, kidney damage and stomach cancer. Worse, it raises blood pressure, a key factor in heart attacks and strokes, which kill about 850,000 Americans a year.

　　纽约市卫生专员托马斯?弗里登(Thomas Frieden)表示，高血压是仅次于吸烟之后的可预防疾病和死亡的主要原因。弗里登敦促全美包装食品制造商和餐厅在未来10年内逐渐将食盐用量减少 50%。美国疾病控制和预防中心(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention，简称CDC)估计，采取这项措施，不仅每年可以挽救15万人的生命，而且可以减少100亿美元的医疗支出。

　　'After smoking, high blood pressure is the leading cause of preventable illness and death,' says New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, who is urging makers of packaged foods and restaurants nationwide to gradually reduce their sodium content by 50% over the next 10 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that such a reduction could save 150,000 lives and $10 billion in health-care expenditures a year.

　　大约5000万美国人都患有高血压（即血压水平长时间至少为140/90 mm/Hg）。另有2000万人接近高血压（即血压水平为120/80至139/ 89）。相比白种人，高血压在非裔美国人当中更加普遍，而随着年龄的增大，将近90%的美国人最终都会患上高血压。

　　Some 50 million Americans have hypertension (that is, blood pressure readings consistently at or above 140/90 mm/Hg). Another 20 million are prehypertensive (with blood pressure from 120/80 to 139/ 89 mm/Hg). Hypertension is more common among African-Americans than whites, and nearly 90% of Americans eventually develop it as they age.