Eating Less Salt Does Not Lower Blood Pressure for Most Americans, Says Yet Another Study
The failure of consensus nutrition "science" and the ongoing collapse of dietary puritanism.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that "most Americans should consume less sodium." The CDC asserts, "Your body needs a small amount of sodium to work properly, but too much sodium is bad for your health. Excess sodium can increase your blood pressure and your risk for a heart disease and stroke. Together, heart disease and stroke kill more Americans each year than any other cause."
Yet, evidence has been gathering for years that the amount of salt consumed by most Americans is not causing them appreciable harm. A new study that followed more than 2,600 people for 16 years in the Framingham Offspring Study, once again, debunks the Federal nutrition nannies' dire claims about salt. The new results are being reported by at the American Society for Nutrition Scientific Sessions during the Experimental Biology 2017 meeting in Chicago.
"We saw no evidence that a diet lower in sodium had any long-term beneficial effects on blood pressure," said Boston University School of Medicine lead researcher Lynn Moore. "Our findings add to growing evidence that current recommendations for sodium intake may be misguided."
The press release announcing the results noted:
The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends limiting sodium intake to 2,300 micromilligrams* a day for healthy people. For the study, the researchers followed 2,632 men and women ages 30 to 64 years old who were part of the Framingham Offspring Study. The participants had normal blood pressure at the study's start. However, over the next 16 years, the researchers found that the study participants who consumed less than 2500 milligrams of sodium a day had higher blood pressure than participants who consumed higher amounts of sodium.
Other large studies published in the past few years have found what researchers call a J-shaped relationship between sodium and cardiovascular risk–that means people with low-sodium diets (as recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans) and people with a very high sodium intake (above the usual intake of the average American) had higher risks of heart disease. Those with the lowest risk had sodium intakes in the middle, which is the range consumed by most Americans.
"Our new results support these other studies that have questioned the wisdom of low dietary sodium intakes in the general population," said Moore.
The researchers suggest that some subset of Americans may be especially salt sensitive and would benefit from consuming less. Better tests should be devised to identify such people so that the rest of us can consume our sodium in peace. As always folks, if your goal is to protect your health strive for moderation in what you eat and drink.
For more background on the ongoing collapse of dietary puritanism, see my article "The Red Meat, Eggs, Fat and Salt Diet."
*Press release said "grams," but as astute readers noted, it's really micromilligrams**. Fixed. **Haste makes mistakes.