Eating less salt reduces the chances of suffering a heart attack or stroke, the first long-term study of salt’s impact on health confirms today. The findings, from a 15-year study, offer the clearest evidence yet that cutting salt consumption saves lives by reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease. People who ate less salty food were found to have a 25 per cent lower risk of cardiac arrest or stroke, and a 20 per cent lower risk of premature death. The results, published in the British Medical Journal, underline the need for population-wide salt reductions in the diet, the scientists conclude. Despite campaigns to reduce salt intake, such as that run by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), actual evidence of any benefit has been limited. This has enabled the salt industry to contest vigorously the value of such campaigns. Both sides accept that cutting salt consumption reduces blood pressure, although not very dramatically. This ought to translate over the longer term into reductions in strokes and heart attacks, but no studies have been able to show this convincingly until now. The new findings are the result of work by a US team led by Nancy Cook, of […]