Got Heart? One More Reason to Watch Your Sodium

There is that well-known benefit of lowering blood pressure associated with eating a lower sodium diet. But more and more researchers are finding that there are definitely desirable long-term benefits as well.

A new study, published in the British Medical Journal April 20, 2007, looked at the data from two trials involving adults age 30-54 with pre-hypertension. Trial #1 with 744 participants included dietary sodium reduction and counseling regarding lower sodium intake for 18 months while Trial #2 involved 2382 participants and lasted 36-48 months.

The researchers followed up on these participants 10-15 years after the original trials.

They found that the people who participated in the sodium lowering interventions had a 25-30% lower risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.

So, it looks like this is more evidence suggesting the short term benefit to reducing sodium in your diet is a reduction of blood pressure but the long term benefit seems to be a reduced risk of cardiovascular events.

~~Elaine

Related Topics:

• Reduce Salt in Your Diet
• Ornish Lifestyle Program

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