Well, at long last the data are in. In a paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (pdf 135.14 kB) , Harvard researchers Adam Bernstein and Walter Willett found that the amount of sodium consumed by Americans over the past 4 decades has remained unchanged, while the rates of high blood pressure have increased greatly. The result, based upon the most reliable form of data - the 24 hour urinary sodium analysis - was a real shock. So upsetting was this data that the authors parsed it in the following way:
"Sodium intake in the US adult population appears to be well above current guidelines and does not appear to have decreased with time."
No statement can be more reflective of a fixed ideology than that. In the first instance, they fully expected to see a significant increase in salt - but they did not - salt consumption has remained unchanged - why did they not simply say salt has not increased with time? If high blood pressure increased significantly but salt consumption did not, then it is obvious that the Dietary Guidelines regarding salt are totally baseless, yet once again they remain entrapped in a flawed doctrine that has proven to be wrong time and time again.
In fact, their most telling, but grudging admission comes near the end of their publication:
"Thus, despite the increase in processed foods in the US marketplace over the past 50 y, total caloric imbalance and the resultant epidemic of obesity may be a more important determinant of the increased prevalence of hypertension than sodium intake."
In other words, the sodium-hypertension link is not what it was quacked up to be!
Not surprisingly, Dr Graham MacGregor (University of London, UK), the spiritual father of WASH (World Action on Salt and Health) feels there must be something wrong with the data . The man behind the worldwide campaign to denigrate salt, has typically tried to cast doubt upon the data because it blows away his anti-salt agenda and his lifelong work.
One thing we know for certain. These data are real and confirms that on a population-wide basis, salt does not contribute to high blood pressure except for a minority of the population that is salt sensitive. I await the day when researchers shake loose from their arbitrary dogma and willingly admit the truth. We will all be better off.
