SALT (sodium chloride)

2021: Salt is okay for most people: no significant association was found between Na intake and all-cause mortality"

Jan, 2004 - Should you be concerned about how much salt you get in your diet?

This issue was thoroughly reviewed in 1998, and it is unclear whether we should worry about it. For those with generally good health, it is likely that worrying about salt will likely be more harmful than enjoying salt. Here are the two key articles, Taubes saying it is unclear, and McCarron writing that salt has little effect on blood pressure.

1) The (Political) Science of Salt Gary Taubes Science 1998 August 14; 281: 898-907.

Three decades of controversy over the putative blood pressure benefits from salt reduction are demonstrating how the demands of good science clash with the pressures of public health policy. Early studies seemed to support the value of salt reduction, leading to the current recommendation that everyone limit salt intake to no more than 6 grams a day, four less than our current average. But as the studies have improved, the apparent benefits have diminished, while the debate has grown more vitriolic. Advocates of the public-health orthodoxy of salt reduction have often cited only those studies that bolster their position while criticizing the motives of their opponents. (Also see the Perspective on p. 933 by David McCarron, a member of a research team that published an analysis of a national health and nutrition database in Science in 1984 suggesting that salt is harmless.)

2) Diet and Blood Pressure--The Paradigm Shift

David A. McCarron

We all know that we shouldn't put too much salt on our food because it might cause our blood pressure to go up. In his Perspective, McCarron argues that the scientific evidence actually tells us something different: Salt has little effect on blood pressure, and the most effective diet-induced changes in blood pressure can be achieved with a menu low in fat but high in calcium, fruits, and vegetables.