Ja. Staessen et al., SALT AND BLOOD-PRESSURE IN COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTION TRIALS, The American journal of clinical nutrition, 65(2), 1997, pp. 661-670
This article reviews community-based salt intervention trials. In the
Belgian Salt Intervention Trial, a controlled 5-y intervention in two
Belgian towns resulted in a reduction in urinary sodium of 17 mmol/24
h (P < 0.001) in adult (aged greater than or equal to 20 y) women in t
he intervention town, which differed from the concurrent trend (an inc
rease of 8 mmol/24 h) in the control town (P = 0.01). However, both sy
stolic (-7.5 compared with -7.9 mm Hg) and diastolic (-2.3 compared wi
th -3.0 mm Hg) pressures declined to the same extent in women of the m
io towns. In adult men in the intervention town, decreases were observ
ed in urinary sodium (-12 mmol/24 h) and in systolic (-5.6 mm Hg) and
diastolic (-2.4 mm Hg) blood pressures, but these trends were the same
in the control town (-12 mmol/24 h, -4.9 mm Hg, and 0.2 mm Hg, respec
tively). The Belgian study and the four other community-based salt int
ervention trials reviewed show that, in general, salt intake in the lo
ng-run cannot be restricted below 5 g/24 h. More moderate salt restric
tion may constitute a more realistic goal, but its influence on blood
pressure in the community at large is probably trivial.