Salt & Cardiovascular Disease

An editorial in today's BMJ discusses research from Dr. Cook and colleagues reporting the long term effects of reduced dietary sodium on cardiovascular disease in people participating in the controlled randomised trials of hypertension prevention follow-up studies. The results show that people originally allocated to either sodium reduction group had a 30% lower incidence of cardiovascular events in the next 10-15 years, irrespective of sex, ethnic origin, age, body mass, and blood pressure. As most salt in our food comes from processed foods ways must be found to lower the salt content in prepared foods.