A Salty Study

I received an email recently from a patient wanting to know what to do in regards to salt intake in light of a study which was released this month from the Journal of the American Medical Association.  There has been long standing consensus that too much salt in the diet raises blood pressure.  High blood pressure (hypertension) indisputably increases the risk of both heart attacks and strokes.  The study looked at a group of people for eight years and followed them till they were 49 years old.  The Centers for Disease Control made a public statement expressing concern over the study's findings and reiterated their support of the stand of the World Health Organization and the American Heart Association that sodium be limited to 1500-2300 mg a day.  Interestingly, the Salt Institute, was the lone organization that hailed the study.

One of my big concerns about the study is how young the patients were.  The chance of dying of heart disease before the age of fifty is quite low.  The fact that they could measure a statistically significant difference surprises me.  It makes me wonder if those who died had preexisting heart disease.  They would be much more likely to be on low salt diets because that is what their doctors would have told them to do in order to minimize their risk.  If that were the case, it would not be salt restriction which caused them to have more adverse events, but rather their underlying heart disease.

Tropical fruit high in potassium with no salt!

Some of the best information we have in regards to sodium restriction come from studies done in relation to the DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) diet.  It is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Recent studies are summarized on their website at www.dashdiet.org.  Some years back I came across a study from a remote pacific island.  The population that lived there did not have access to processed foods.  The amount of sodium in their diet was exceedingly low and the amount of potassium was quite high due to a high intake of the native tropical fruits and vegetables.  The astonishing finding to me was that they did not find one single person with high blood pressure.  Not one!  I would have thought that someone would have had a genetic aberration that would have caused their blood pressure to be high.  To me, this study stands as a testimony of what eating the right foods will do for us.  Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.  Leave the salt in the cupboard.