Latest salt and health outcomes study: no benefit of low-salt (again)
The International Journal of Epidemiology has just published (February 2007) "Dietary patterns and cardiovascular disease mortality in Japan: a prospective cohort study ." Taichi Shimazu and colleagues studied 40,547 Japanese over seven years and reported on the 801 cardiovascular deaths in the group. They reported, unsurprisingly, that the Japanese dietary pattern is high in sodium (my note: possibly the highest in the world). Their conclusion: "The Japanese dietary pattern was associated with a decreased risk of CVD mortality, despite its relation to sodium intake and hypertension."
The authors point out that while the Japanese consume more salt than western diets, their age-adjusted mortality due to cardiovascular disease is about 40% lower than the UK and about 30% lower than the US. They point out that earlier studies of particular nutrients or foods in the Japanese diet (such as sodium) have generated great concern among public health activists, but when the entire diet is considered, those associations disappeared.
By our count, that's 14 studies relating health outcomes to dietary salt . None confirm any health benefit for lower salt intakes in the range of the American diet and of the two in high-salt-consuming Japan, this one finds no benefit while the other found reduced stroke incidence on levels where the "low salt" consumers ate more salt than the U.S. average. See our online discussion .
