Would they need to have 2 placebo arms to make this an optimal study design then? One for glucose (as sodium ascorbate was diluted using a glucose solution), and another placebo group for sodium chloride?
Honestly if they had balanced the sodium via almost any mechanism, I wouldn't have had much to say about it. The difficulty with 2 placebo arms is that you have to expand your study population which I think poses an ethical issue, but otherwise yes.