Lead author Andrew Mente, of
the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at
McMaster University in Canada,
and colleagues say their results indicate only people with high blood pressure (hypertension)
who have a high salt intake should reduce their salt consumption.
Sodium chloride or table salt
is approximately 40% sodium. The milligrams of sodium have been converted to
its equivalent in teaspoon so as to make it easy to measure at home.
1/4 teaspoon salt = 575 mg sodium
1/2 teaspoon salt = 1,150 mg sodium
3/4 teaspoon salt = 1,725 mg sodium
1 teaspoon salt = 2,300 mg sodium
Furthermore, the researchers
suggest current recommendations for daily salt consumption may be set too low.
The Dietary Guidelines for
Americans recommend that Americans consume less than 2,300mg of sodium each day.
It is widely accepted that too
much salt in the diet can lead to high blood pressure, increasing the risk for
heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases. This is because salt
works on your kidneys to make your body hold on to more water. This extra
stored water raises your blood pressure and puts strain on your kidneys,
arteries, heart and brain.
Does reducing salt intake to the levels recommended in current guidelines
really reduce the risk of such outcomes? This is what Mente and colleagues set
out to investigate.
The team analyzed data of more
than 130,000 individuals spanning 49 countries.
They looked at the sodium
intake of participants and how this related to the risk of heart attack and
stroke among those with and without high blood pressure.
Compared
with people who had an average sodium intake, the rates of heart attack,
stroke, and death were higher among those who had a low sodium intake,
regardless of whether participants had high blood pressure.
Interestingly, low salt intake
in the study was defined as an intake of less than 3,000 milligrams a day,
which is above current recommendations in the United States.
Furthermore, the researchers
found that only individuals with high blood pressure appeared to be subject to
the risks associated with high salt intake - defined as more than 6,000
milligrams daily.
Mente says the team's findings
are "extremely important" for
individuals with high blood pressure.
"While our data
highlights the importance of reducing high salt intake in people with
hypertension, it does not support reducing salt intake to low levels.
Our findings are important
because they show that lowering sodium
is best targeted at those with hypertension who also consume high sodium diets."
- Andrew Mente
Based on their results, Mente
suggests that strategies to reduce salt consumption should be targeted at those
with high blood pressure who have a high salt intake.
"This study adds to our
understanding of the relationship between salt intake and health, and questions
the appropriateness of current guidelines that recommend low sodium intake in
the entire population," says study co-author Martin O'Donnell, of McMaster
University and the National University of Ireland Galway.
"An approach that
recommends salt in moderation, particularly focused on those with hypertension,
appears more in-line with current evidence."
I think this is just one study, and more research is needed.
Lifestyle
choices have allowed many people with a family history of high blood pressure
to avoid it themselves. Lifestyle changes you can make to prevent it include:
Eat
a heart-healthy diet.
Enjoy
regular physical activity.
Maintain
a healthy weight.
Manage
stress.
Avoid
tobacco smoke.
Comply
with medication prescriptions.
If
you drink, limit alcohol.
In today’s world, salt is abundant and cheap, but
it wasn’t always that way. Salt was hard to come by for our earliest ancestors,
who got along quite nicely on about a tenth of today’s average use. In time,
people learned how to find salt and extract it from the earth. But it was hard
work and salt was scarce, so it became a valuable commodity that was used for
currency. In fact, the word salary
is derived from the Latin word for salt. Perhaps because it was rare and
expensive, salt carried a certain prestige; even today, a successful man is
“worth his salt” and a good man is “the salt of the earth.” Jesus Christ
also called Christians the ‘salt of the earth’.
In some people, sodium can increase blood pressure.
However, controlling sodium means more than just putting down the salt shaker.
It also means checking labels, because up to 75 percent of the sodium we
consume is hidden in processed foods like tomato sauce, soups, condiments,
canned foods and prepared mixes. When purchasing processed food, read the
labels; watch for the words "soda" and "sodium" and the
symbol "Na" on labels; these words show that sodium compounds are
present.
There is still a lot of controversy about intake of
sodium and hypertension. Some researchers are in support of a low sodium diet,
while others say since most cases of
hypertension are essential hypertension (hypertension without any identifiable
cause), it is unlikely that a single factor can be attributed to the cause of
hypertension in most hypertensive patients.
The traditional Japanese diet
is very high in salt intake and yet, the Japanese had the highest rate of
longevity in the world, and low rates of cardiovascular disease.
The growing awareness of
excessive sodium consumption in connection with hypertension and cardiovascular
disease has increased the usage of salt
substitutes at both a consumer and industrial level.
On a consumer level, salt
substitutes, which usually substitute a portion of sodium chloride content with
potassium chloride, can be used to increase the potassium to sodium consumption
ratio.
There have been concerns with
certain populations' use of potassium chloride as a substitute for salt as high
potassium loads are dangerous for groups with diabetes, renal diseases, or
heart failure. The use of salts with minerals such as natural salts have also
been tested, but like salt substitutes partially containing potassium, mineral
salts produce a bitter taste above certain levels.
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