Though Ezekowitz’s group did not discover vital variations in deaths or hospitalizations between the 2 teams of sufferers, these on the low-salt weight loss program did present enchancment in high quality of life and within the severity of their coronary heart failure.
Ezekowitz thinks that these outcomes might need been totally different if the research had gone on longer or if the degrees of salt consumption had been even decrease.
The findings usually are not a license to eat as a lot salt as you want, he added.
“Folks ought to proceed to be involved in regards to the quantity of salt of their weight loss program and proceed to cut back the sodium of their weight loss program total,” Ezekowitz mentioned. “There could also be advantages that we did not measure in our clinical trial that they may get from lowering salt within the weight loss program. A low-salt weight loss program may very well enhance their total high quality of life. The true take-home is {that a} low-sodium weight loss program stays an essential half for many sufferers.”
The report was printed on-line April 2 in The Lancetjournaland was offered on the American Faculty of Cardiology annual assembly in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Gregg Fonarow, interim chief of the division of cardiology at College of California, Los Angeles, mentioned for many years sufferers with coronary heart failure have been suggested to limit their salt consumption.
“This longstanding, extensively accepted advice was primarily based on a physiologic rationale, scientific remark and knowledgeable opinion slightly than having been demonstrated in potential, randomized scientific trials,” he famous.
Whereas newer tips for coronary heart failure have acknowledged the uncertainty about the advantages of lowering salt, many sufferers have nonetheless been advised to cut back their salt to very low ranges, Fonarow mentioned.
“The proof from this essential randomized scientific trial means that dietary sodium restriction to a goal of lower than 1,500 mg per day in sufferers with coronary heart failure didn’t scale back mortality, cardiovascular-related hospitalization or cardiovascular-related emergency room visits,” he mentioned.
For sufferers with coronary heart failure, it stays unclear whether or not any stage of salt restriction provides scientific advantages, Fonarow mentioned.
“But you will need to consider the same old care comparability group was consuming a bit over 2,000 mg of sodium day by day, which remains to be decrease than the three,400 mg of sodium that’s the common quantity consumed within the U.S. by the final inhabitants,” he mentioned.
