Eating less salt does NOT cut risk of heart disease

Image via Wikipedia

We have been told for years by doctors and government health departments that eating salt causes heart disease. Not so, a new study says. Reuters is reporting that people with higher salt intakes were not, I repeat, not, more likely to have high blood pressure or die of heart disease.

The findings "certainly do not support the current recommendation to lower salt intake in the general population," study author Dr. Jan Staessen, of the University of Leuven in Belgium, told Reuters.

The existing salt guidelines are based on data from short-term studies of people in a experiment where they were fed either a high or low sodium diet. U.S. guidelines currently recommend consuming less than 2,300 milligrams of salt daily and 1,500 mg in people who are more at risk for high blood pressure or heart disease. According to the new findings, making the leap from the small test groups, to the general population, hasn't held true.

In this new study, which used existing data from two different studies, the chance of getting heart and blood vessel diseases did not differ with salt intake levels. In fact, participants with the lowest salt intake had the highest rate of death from heart disease and people who ate the most salt had the lowest.

Pass the salt!