Beyond Blood Pressure: A Low-Salt Diet Offers Other Heart-Health
Benefits May 31, 2007—Reducing sodium intake is a well known
first-line treatment for high blood pressure (hypertension), and
the more salt is restricted, the more positive impact the change
has on health. But the cardiovascular benefits of cutting down
on sodium don’t stop at blood pressure reduction: new research
has found that eating less salt also seems to prevent other
cardiovascular diseases. “Until now, there have been few
observational studies and virtually no trial data to show the
effect of sodium intake on cardiovascular diseases such as heart
attack and stroke,” said Nancy R. Cook, ScD, associate professor
of Medicine (Biostatistics) at Harvard Medical School and lead
author of the new study. The researchers conducted two
randomized lifestyle intervention studies: the Trials of
Hypertension Prevention Phase I (TOHP I), which lasted 18
months, and Phase II (TOHP II), which lasted 36 to 48 months. In
both studies, participants were edu