Strokes: what saving salt actually brings

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Table salt can increase blood pressure. It is made up of sodium and chloride, which dissolve in an aqueous medium. If a lot of sodium circulates in the vessels, the body tries to dilute it: it channels more fluid from the tissue into the veins. But this increases the blood pressure in the vessels. So far, so obvious.

In fact, if you consume little salt, blood pressure can be lowered - around 5 mmHg less is possible if you reduce the consumption to less than 6 grams per day. For comparison: According to the World Health Organization, the average salt consumption in Europe is between 8 g and 19 g per day.

If you save on salt, you could lower your blood pressure and thus your risk of heart attack and stroke - but is that really the case in reality? Because in addition to the amount of sodium consumed, there are many other factors that influence blood pressure and the risk of heart attacks.

Large-scale experiment with sodium-reduced salt

A widely acclaimed study now provides the proof. A total of more than 20,000 people over sixty years from around 600 Chinese villages took part. The researchers supplied half of them with sodium-reduced salt. 25 percent of the sodium had been replaced by potassium, which has no blood pressure-increasing effect.

Since people in rural regions have little access to processed food, their salt consumption could be reduced in a controlled manner by 25 percent in this way.

The study also included people who had high blood pressure (88 percent) or even had a stroke (73 percent).

14 percent fewer strokes

The sodium reduction was actually successful: In the group of sodium savers, 14 percent fewer strokes and 12 percent fewer deaths occurred in the 4.7 years of follow-up on average. For people with a higher risk of stroke, a sodium reduction makes perfect sense.

However, if you feel encouraged by this and are very ambitious in saving salt, you should know that too little salt is also detrimental to your health. According to a large study, the risk of cardiovascular events increases if the daily salt intake is kept below three grams. This applies to people with high blood pressure as well as to those with healthy values.

Saving salt is not easy to achieve in western industrial nations: there is a lot of salt in the abundant foods such as bread, sausage, cheese, sauces and ready-made products.

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