Cutting salt might not help heart, study says

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(CBS) Salty snackers may have reason to rejoice. A new study suggests cutting back on dietary salt intake won't cut risk of heart disease, contrary to popular belief.

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For the review - published in the July 6th Cochrane Review - British researchers analyzed data from seven studies on nearly 6,500 people on reduced salt diets.  What did they find?

There was "no clear benefit" that cutting back on salt reduced the likelihood of dying from heart disease or having a heart attack. In fact, the researchers said salt reduction actually increased deaths in people with heart failure.

The news was met with mixed reviews from health experts.

"I have always viewed the data for salt shortening life as being very weak," Dr. Ken Fujioka, director of the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center at Scripps Health in San Diego told ABC News.

Other experts may be experiencing a rise in blood pressure themselves.

"This is a completely inappropriate conclusion, given the strong evidence and the overwhelming public health consensus that salt raises blood pressure which leads to cardiovascular disease," Katharine Jenner, spokesperson for British nutrition advocate Consensus Action on Salt and Health, told the Daily Mail. 

World health officials added that this study wouldn't impact their nutritional recommendations.

"This study does not change the priorities outlined worldwide for a population reduction in salt intake to prevent heart attacks and strokes, the greatest killers in the world," Francesco Cappuccio, head of the World Health Organization's collaborating center for nutrition, told Reuters.

The daily recommended value for sodium intake for Americans is 2,300 mg a day, according to the CDC, which also recommends that certain groups consume 1,500 mg or less each day, including Americans over 51 years old, African Americans, and people with hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease.

The CDC has more on salt intake.

[cktirumalai]

So long as the evidence and the conclusions are not all on one side, it would not be wise to embrace salt.
Candadai Tirumalai

[amerilatino]

Salt in and of itself will not cause heart disease. A combination of genetic propensity to arterial plaque, excessive calorie intake in proportion to calorie output leading to overweight, chronic stress and very little aerobic exercise will get you there before salt alone will.

[zumba-wear]

I think that Everything has been described in systematic manner so that reader could get maximum information and learn many things.

[jmailbox]

Salt doesn't cause the heart disease directly, it's the combination of High Salt, Lots of Sugar, Lots of fats.

Salt increases your blood pressure, the heart has to work harder, so the extra sugar and fats in foods get stored as body fat.

Couple that will sitting around all day and not going out, then you have a huge increase of heart disease and diabetes.

Even more sad, is that this is what most children are facing today in the USA.

[Nate650]

This widespread fat phobia mentality is ridiculous. What causes heart disease is basically regular consumption of industrial/processed foods. People are looking at nutrition labels for useless numbers like fat and calorie counts and completely ignoring where the food came from, how the food was processed and what processed ingredients are present in the food. Low fat and low calorie does not mean healthy. Quality is more important than quantity. Natural fats, included saturated, are not the problem. Virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil are both high in fat but have many health properties. The Masaai tribe of East Africa drink up to a gallon of raw whole milk a day, drink cow blood, and eat plenty of red meat and are among the healthiest and skinniest people in the world. Man-made trans fats are a different story however.