The importance of a valid assessment of salt intake in individuals and populations. A scientific statement of the British and Irish Hypertension Society
File(s)
Author(s)
Cappuccio, Francesco P
Sever, Peter S
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
High salt (salt is sodium chloride – 2.5 g of salt contain 1 g of sodium) intake is a major determinant of blood pressure (BP) in individuals and populations [1]. A reduction of salt intake leads to a reduction in BP and is associated with a reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) [1,2,3]. However, in the past few years, some epidemiological studies suggested the presence of a J-shaped association between salt (sodium) consumption and CVD [4,5,6,7,8,9]. These results sparked both scientific and media interest and opened a debate on the wisdom of pursuing population-wide salt reduction policies to reduce CVD, as currently recommended by most national and international health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO) [10]. Systematic appraisal of these studies identified a variety of pitfalls, suggesting that their results were based on flawed methodologies [11, 12]. The present scientific statement aims to briefly discuss only one such flaw, the use of biased methods of assessing salt consumption, and the consequences of using such biased estimates of exposure (salt intake) when assessing both individual salt intake (for associations with CVD) and population salt consumption (to evaluate population salt reduction programmes).
Date Issued
2019-05-01
Date Acceptance
2019-04-04
Citation
Journal of Human Hypertension, 2019, 33 (5), pp.345-348
ISSN
0950-9240
Publisher
Springer Nature
Start Page
345
End Page
348
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Human Hypertension
Volume
33
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1038/s41371-019-0203-1.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000467909800001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Peripheral Vascular Disease
Cardiovascular System & Cardiology
URINARY SODIUM-EXCRETION
POTASSIUM EXCRETION
CARDIOVASCULAR-DISEASE
MORTALITY
RISK
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-04-26