The only people who should reduce their salt intake are those who, according to a new study who suffer from high blood pressure or that exceed the daily intake recommended by the World Health Organization. The WHO recommends not to exceed the daily consumption of 2g of sodium or 5g of salt per day.
According to this study published in The Lancet, it appears that insufficient salt intake can also increase the risk ofstrokeor from heart attack.
Low sodium intake associated with increased risk of heart attack
For this study researchers at McMaster University in Canada studied the salt intake of 130,000 people from 49 different countries. In particular, they looked at whether the link between salt intake and cardiovascular disease differed between people. suffering from high blood pressureand those with normal blood pressure.
They found that in people without a problem with hypertension, a low sodium intake (less than 3g per day) was associated with more heart attacks, strokes and deaths compared to a average salt intake.
Low-salt diets are not good for everyone
In addition, the results of this study showed that the health problems associated with high sodium intake appeared to be limited only to people with hypertension. In the group of patients followed for this study, only one in ten people had both high blood pressure and too much salt intake (more than 6g of sodium per day or three times the daily intake recommended by the WHO).
“Low sodium diets should only be recommended for people with hypertension and not for the general population” the Canadian researchers conclude.
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