Low Salt Diet May Increase the Likelihood of Heart Disease

Thu, 10 Nov 2011

Reducing your salt intake might not be as beneficial for your heart as you may have once thought this is the finding of a new study.

The study discovered that a low salt diet reduces blood pressure but it increases the cholesterol, fat and hormone levels in the blood which are known to heighten the risk of heart disease.

Altogether the positive and negative consequences of a low salt diet can cancel each other out therefore a low salt diet has a minimal effect on the development of disease, so says the study researcher Dr. Niels Graudal, of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark.

The study adds to a fast increasing body of research which questions the long-term benefits of a low salt diet.

July 2011 saw a review of seven previous studies finding that a moderate reduction in salt intake did not lower the risk of an individual dying or having heart disease .

The impact of a low-salt diet on blood pressure was most significant for those with high blood pressure or hypertension as their blood pressure by 3.5 per cent.

However, a low-salt diet led to a 2.5 per cent increase in cholesterol levels, and a 7 per cent increase in triglycerides.

"The impact of the low salt diet also led to increases in hormones which regulate the body's salt levels, which causes the body to preserve salt, as opposed to excreting it in the urine," Graudal added.
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