I'm often asked what my opinion about a diet or disease is.

Who cares what my or anyone else's opinion is?

Always you care about is what the science says.

What does the best available balance of evidence

published in the peer-reviewed medical literature

have to say right now?

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today, we examine the need for less sodium and more potassium-rich foods.

Did you know that a staggering 99.99% of Americans fail to meet the minimum recommended potassium or the maximum recommended sodium?

Here's the story.

Worldwide, physical inactivity accounted for more than 10 million years of healthy life lost.

But what we eat accounts for nearly 20 times that.

Unhealthy diets shape hundreds of millions of disability free years off of people's lives every year.

What are the worst aspects of our diets?

Four out of the five, the deadliest dietary traps involve not eating enough of certain foods,

not eating enough whole grains, not eating enough fruits, not eating enough nuts and seeds,

and not eating enough vegetables.

But our most fatal flaw is too much salt.

That's on the order of 15 times deadlier than diets too high in soda, for example, just to keep things in perspective.

There remains no single more effective public health action related to nutrition than the reduction of sodium in the diet.

This is why national and international health organizations have called for warning labels on salt packets and salt shakers.

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