Bruce Neal, from the St George Institute of Global Health, has recently written "Best to ignore salt claims..." in The Conversation about conflicting studies which have just been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. One of the studies was from the Global Burden of Disease program, finding that too much salt was causing millions of premature deaths and was especially related to high blood pressure. The other study was a Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study, involving a large data set from around the world. This cohort study found that high salt intake was unlikely to be related to blood pressure and suggested that World Health Organisation salt intake guidelines were set too low.
Neal argues that the PURE study was flawed in its findings, and that "Randomised trials of salt reduction
show clear benefits on blood pressure, the leading cause of premature death in
the world. This is the best evidence we have to date and it’s the evidence that
should drive health policy".
Find the reports of the studies, as well as an editorial, in the New England Journal of Medicine, August 14 edition, volume 371, no. 7. Full text can be obtained through CIAP or by asking your health librarian.
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