In an excellent attempt to provide a balanced view of the salt and health debate, Kevin Lomangino, editor of Clinical Nutrition Insight reviews several sides of the matter in the May 20, 2008 edition of the bulletin . He correctly states that a number of physicians feel strongly that the reduction of salt intake would provide significant benefit to the overall health of the population. However, he immediately follows on to say that there are other well-known physicians that dissent from this point of view.
But while the maneuverings on the political and media fronts would suggest that the science on salt settled, a thorough search of the literature shows that this is not yet the case.
Lomangino goes on to quote Doctor Alexander Logan, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Ontario, who stated in an introduction to the 2006 Journal of the American College of Nutrition supplement about dietary salt:
Until better information is available, evidence supports a public-health dietary policy that focuses on improving diet quality in the entire population and recommends a different target intake levels for sodium based on individual susceptibility to salt.
The article describes that several influential medical practitioners would like to see a major study on the impact of sodium restriction on health outcomes while, on the other hand, some believe that it is unnecessary and expensive. Dr. Michael Alderman, professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of medicine and Past President of the American Society of Hypertension believes that proceeding to implement a salt reduction policy without such a study is very risky.
To experiment on 300 million people on issues that might cause harm... it's just not sound scientific policy.
The article went on to say that Dr. Alderman was very concerned that people have stopped looking at the paucity of evidence supporting salt reduction policy and that they are simply looking at the means of implementing one.
