Excess Dietary Salt Puts Heart Health at Risk

Clinical guidelines recommend that people with type 2 diabetes reduce their dietary sodium intake.  Chika Horikawa, from the University of Niigata Prefecture (Japan), and colleagues examined the role between dietary sodium intake and incidence of diabetic complications in patients with type 2 diabetes.  The team surveyed subjects enrolled in the Japan Diabetes Complications Study, ages 40 to 70 years, who had been diagnosed with diabetes. Subjects answered questions pertaining to their diets, including sodium intake, and the researchers monitored cardiovascular complications in an eight-year follow-up period.  Data revealed that the subjects who consumed an average of 5.9 grams of sodium daily were at double the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, as compared to those who ate an average of 2.8 grams of sodium daily. Further, the effects of a high-sodium diet appeared to become exacerbated by poor blood sugar control.  The study authors conclude that:  “high dietary sodium intake is associated with elevated incidence of [cardiovascular disease] in patients with type 2 diabetes and that there is a synergistic effect between HbA1c values and dietary sodium intake for the development of [cardiovascular disease].”