Diets with less salt do not reduce risks of death from heart failure

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Diets with less salt do not reduce risks of death from heart failure

The Lancet: Subverting a century of common sense, Diets with less salt do not reduce risks of death from heart failure.

Salt is the most indispensable condiment in the daily diet. In addition to making the food more flavorful, it is also an essential substance to ensure the normal physiological functions of the human body.

But if it is too much, many studies have proved that long-term excessive intake of salt will increase the burden on the liver and kidneys, increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cancer.

The main component of common salt is sodium chloride (NaCl) , and excessive intake of sodium salt can easily lead to hypertension and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases .

For the last 100 years , people with heart disease have been told to reduce their sodium intake, but so far there is not much scientific evidence to support this advice.

On April 2, 2022, The Lancet published a paper titled: Reduction of dietary sodium to less than 100 mmol in heart failure (SODIUM-HF): an international, open-label, randomised, controlled trial .

This is the largest randomized controlled clinical trial to date examining the relationship between sodium intake and heart failure, and the results of this clinical trial were mixed . However, it was able to improve patients’ symptoms such as swelling, fatigue and cough, as well as improve their overall quality of life .

The study’s leader, Professor Justin Ezekowitz of the University of Alberta in Canada , said: “We can’t say that reducing sodium intake reduces the risk of hospitalization or death for all heart patients, as we have done before, and can only say that it improves overall quality of life.

Diets with less salt do not reduce risks of death from heart failure

Previously, the British Medical Journal ( BMJ) and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published separate papers showing that using potassium instead of sodium to reduce sodium intake can reduce cardiovascular morbidity and death risk .

In this latest study, the research team followed 806 heart failure patients at 26 medical centers in Canada, the United States, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and New Zealand. They were randomly assigned to two groups, one receiving usual care and the other receiving a low-sodium diet.

Diets with less salt do not reduce risks of death from heart failure

Before starting the trial, the patients had an average daily sodium intake of 2,217 mg, which exceeded the recommended daily intake of 1,500 mg. After a one-year study, the general-care group ate 2,071 milligrams of sodium per day, compared with 1,658 milligrams per day in the low-sodium diet group.

The research team compared the two groups for all-cause mortality, hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease, and emergency room visits and found no statistically significant differences between the two groups.

Diets with less salt do not reduce risks of death from heart failure

The research team further used three different assessment tools to assess the quality of life of these patients, as well as the degree of heart failure, and found that the quality of life and heart failure degree of heart failure patients in the low-sodium diet group continued to improve.

Further research will be conducted to isolate biomarkers from the blood of patients who benefit most from a low-sodium diet, with a view to providing more targeted individual dietary regimens in the future, the research team said.

The research team will also follow these patients long-term to determine whether the low-sodium diet has further long-term benefits.