Salt Study Discounts Link to Hypertension

In a study that seems likely to re-energize the debate over dietary salt, European researchers found that the changes in the amount of sodium excreted in the urine were related to changes in systolic blood pressure.

But they were not linked to diastolic pressure or the risk of developing hypertension, according to Jan Staessen, MD, PhD, of the University of Leuven in Leuven, Belgium, and colleagues.

And levels of urinary sodium excretion were inversely related to the risk of dying of cardiovascular causes, Staessen and colleagues reported in the May 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. More