April 9, 2024 – Replacing salt with salt substitutes in foods might help protect people from early death, and particularly from death from heart problems reminiscent of heart attacks or strokes.
The advantages of salt substitutes have been observed within the risks of a bunch of health problems generally known as cardiovascular diseases, which include heart disease, heart valve problems and heart rhythm problems, in addition to events reminiscent of heart attack or stroke.
The results of researchers in Australia and published Tuesday within the Journal Annals of Internal Medicine, are based on a brand new evaluation of information from 18 previous studies, most of which only included people living in Asian countries reminiscent of China or Taiwan. For this reason, researchers warned that using salt substitutes might not be related to the identical health consequences for individuals who eat a Western food plan. Americans are inclined to get the vast majority of their salt intake from eating processed and packaged foods, whereas the normal Asian food plan tends to get salt from salt added when cooking at home.
Salt substitutes are products that contain less sodium and more potassium. The researchers attempted to only include studies that examined using salt substitutes and intentionally excluded research studies that only checked out reducing salt intake.
People within the evaluation tended to be older and at increased risk of heart problems, so people at average risk of heart problems or lower risk may not necessarily profit from the protective advantages of salt alternative.
Overall, the researchers characterised their findings as based on “low-certainty evidence.” However, they noted that their results are consistent with other research, reminiscent of links between sodium reduction, reduced blood pressure and reduced risk of death.
They warned that some people could also be sensitive to such a substitute, particularly those with kidney problems.
Another challenge, in keeping with the authors, is that salt substitutes usually are not widely available and should be dearer than table salt products. They suggested that public health initiatives to offset costs could be worthwhile because lots of the people most prone to heart problems are inclined to live in low-income households.
Heart disease is the leading explanation for death within the United States and worldwide, and so the authors wrote that despite the constraints of their study, the outcomes were promising. They found that as much as 10% of all global deaths from heart problems are as a result of high salt levels in people's diets.
“The improved cardiovascular outcomes and reductions in mortality demonstrated in the current review could have significant clinical and public health implications given the importance and burden [cardiovascular disease] on global health,” the researchers wrote.