Minder zout geeft duidelijk minder hart- en vaatziektes.*
Uit een analyse van verschillende jarenlange studies over zoutgebruik en hart- en vaatziektes blijkt dat jarenlang de hoeveelheid zout in de voeding met een derde verminderen betekent 25% minder kans op het ontstaan van een hart- of vaatziekte.
Cutting
salt intake helps prevent cardiovascular disease
People
who significantly cut back on the amount of salt in their diet could reduce
their chances of developing cardiovascular disease by a quarter, according to a
report on bmj.com.
Researchers
in Boston also found a reduction in salt intake could lower the risk of death
from cardiovascular disease by up to a fifth.
Cardiovascular
disease refers to the group of diseases linked to the heart or arteries, for
example a stroke or heart disease. While there is already a substantial body of
evidence showing that cutting back on salt lowers blood pressure, studies
showing subsequent levels of cardiovascular disease in the population have been
limited and inconclusive.
This
research provides some of the strongest objective evidence to date that lowering
the amount of salt in the diet reduces the long term risk of future
cardiovascular disease, say the authors of the report.
Researchers
followed up participants from two trials completed in the nineties which had
been conducted to analyse the effect that reducing salt in the diet had on blood
pressure.
All
the participants had high-normal blood pressure (pre-hypertension). They were
therefore at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease. 744 people took
part in the first Trial of Hypertension Prevention which was completed in 1990,
2382 in the second, which ended in 1995. In both trials participants reduced
their sodium intake by approximately 25% - 35% alongside a control group who
didn't cut back on their salt intake.
Detailed
information about cardiovascular and other health problems was sought from
participants in the earlier trials. As part of this researchers found that
participants who had cut back on salt during the trials tended to stick to a
lower salt diet compared to those who had been in the control group. In total
the researchers obtained information from 2415 (77.3%) participants, 200 of whom
had reported some sort of cardiovascular problem.
The
reduction in the risk of developing cardiovascular problems as a result of the
sodium reduction intervention was substantial. The results showed these
pre-hypertensive individuals were 25% less likely to develop cardiovascular
problems over the course of the 10-15 years post-trial. There was also a 20%
lower mortality rate. This risk reduction was evident in each trial.
To the authors knowledge this study is the first and only study of sufficient size and duration to assess the effects of a low salt diet on cardiovascular problems based on randomised trial data. It provides unique evidence that lowering salt in the diet might prevent cardiovascular disease. (Mei 2007) (Opm.: Kruiden zijn een goed en gezond alternatief voor zout.)