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by mysterywhiteboy 4690 days ago
As someone else in the same position (young and mild hypertension) I too was told to cut back. I am a CS PhD and have no medical/nutritional background. Everything I know came from Google, PubMed, and my GP - so (for want of a better phrase) take what I say with a pinch of salt ;)

The causal relationship between salt and blood pressure appears to have historically been under debate. I don't however think it should be so readily dismissed as not backed by "Science". In fact the evidence appears to suggest that there is now little to debate.

A study called INTERSALT [1] in the late 1980s appears to have muddied the waters, and is often brought up. It supported the causal link - but was subsequently seen to be the victim of poor statistical analysis.

This seems to have been the theme of those arguing pro-salt, finding flaws in studies. Fair game - but it doesn't disprove the link. More recently though the general consensus seems to be that a long term reduction sodium has a measurable and beneficial impact on BP[2]. A key study in demonstrating the link was the DASH-Sodium study, a randomized controlled trial [3].

The Harvard School of Public Health has some great articles[4][5] discussing the "Salt Debate" and points to a number of papers.

Personally, having taken time to read (and understand what I can), I think the evidence supporting is pretty compelling so have reduced the levels of sodium in my diet.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersalt_study [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23558162 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11136953?dopt=Citation [4] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2010/07/10/its-t... [5] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt-and-heart-d...
1 comments
beagle3 4690 days ago
By all means, if you already have hypertension, it is good advice to reduce salt intake - I don't know what the posterior probability for salt sensitive hypertension given hypertension, might be >50%, and it is definitely prudent especially since AFAIK there's no definite test for salt sensitivity.

However, iirc (can't review now), the data supports the following:

A) on average, if hypertension, reducing salt reduces blood pressure. But so does adding potassium.

B) despite that, there is a population with hypertension for which salt reduction does not reduce blood pressure.

C) In healthy individuals, increase of salt intake increases blood pressure slightly, but does not get to the hypertension realm.

But the often repeated meme "salt causes hypertension" is not supported by data. Furthermore, sodium deficiency is a serious condition, which was practically unheard of before the low sodium craze.

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