Harvard "Diet Tips" admits "considerable debate" on salt's role in blood pressure
The April 10 issue of the Harvard Medical School 's HealthBeat offers "diet tips for lower blood pressure." We wish they'd wake up that the real issue isn't "blood pressure," but "improved health." Still, the glimmerings of awakening are discernible. Let me add boldface to the relevant parts of the complete text for the tip: "Consume less salt":
Doctors first noticed a link between hypertension and sodium chloride - the most common form of dietary salt - in the early 1900s, when they found restricting salt in patients with kidney failure and severe hypertension brought their blood pressures down and improved kidney function.
Federal guidelines advise people to limit sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams (mg) per day - about the amount in 1 teaspoon of table salt. Yet Americans typically consume 1 to 3 teaspoons, or as much as 7,200 mg a day. This fact, coupled with the high prevalence of hypertension in the United States, led researchers to assume that salt overload was the culprit.
As it turns out, this may or may not be true. Nearly 50% of people who have hypertension are salt-sensitive, meaning eating too much sodium clearly elevates their blood pressure and puts them at risk for complications. In addition, people with diabetes, the obese, and older people seem more sensitive to the effects of salt than the general population. However, the question of whether high salt consumption also puts generally healthy people at risk for hypertension is the source of considerable debate. Regardless of whether high salt intake increases blood pressure, it does interfere with the blood pressure-lowering effects of antihypertensive medications.
Baby steps forward.
