Review finds no proven clinical benefit to strict salt restriction for patients with heart failure

 Ask your doctor about salt intake for hypertension and don't accept research from China on it.

• salt (39 posts to June 2011)

• salt restriction (3 posts to December 2015)

Review finds no proven clinical benefit to strict salt restriction for patients with heart failure

For decades, it's been thought that people with heart failure should drastically reduce their dietary salt intake, but some studies have suggested that salt restriction could be harmful for these patients. A recent review in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation that assessed all relevant studies published between 2000 and 2023 has concluded that there is no proven clinical benefit to this strategy for patients with heart failure.

Most relevant randomized trials were small, and a single large, randomized clinical trial was stopped early due to futility. Although moderate to strict salt restriction was linked with better quality of life and functional status, it did not affect mortality and hospitalization rates among patients with heart failure.

Doctors often resist making changes to age-old tenets that have no true scientific basis; however, when new good evidence surfaces, we should make an effort to embrace it."

Paolo Raggi MD, PhD, author of the University of Alberta

Source:

Wiley

Journal reference:

Raggi, P., (2024) Salt versus no salt restriction in heart failure a review. European Journal of Clinical Investigation. doi.org/10.1111/eci.14265.

The type, not just the amount, of sugar consumption matters in risk of health problems

Is your doctor stuck in the past and still focusing on salt?

Paper Raises More Questions About Salt Restriction In Heart Failure

 

Low-Salt Diet Ineffective, Study Finds. Disagreement Abounds.

 

The wrong white crystals: not salt but sugar as aetiological in hypertension and cardiometabolic disease

The latest here:
The type, not just the amount, of sugar consumption matters in risk of health problems

American Physiological Society News

Long–term fructose consumption impairs vascular and liver function in rats.
The type of sugar you eat – and not just calorie count – may determine your risk for chronic disease. A new study is the first of its kind to compare the effects of two types of sugar on metabolic and vascular function. The paper was published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology–Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Female rats were given a liquid solution of either glucose or fructose in addition to their normal diet of solid food. The rats received the sweetened solutions for eight weeks, roughly equivalent to a person eating large amounts of sugar for six years. The sugar–fed rats were compared with a control group that received plain drinking water in addition to their food supply.

Researchers found that although both sugar–fed groups consumed more calories than the control group, the total calorie intake of the glucose–fed rats was higher than the rats that were given fructose. Another surprising observation was that “despite this difference, only the fructose group exhibited a significant increase in final body weight,” wrote the research team.

In addition to higher weight gain, the fructose group showed more markers of vascular disease and liver damage than the glucose group. These included high triglycerides, increased liver weight, decreased fat burning in the liver and impaired relaxation of the aorta, which can affect blood pressure.

These findings suggest that an increase in the amount of calories consumed due to sweeteners is not the only factor involved in long–term health risks. The type of sugar may also play a role in increasing risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

The article is titled “Type of Supplemented Simple Sugar, Not Merely Calorie Intake, Determines Adverse Effects on Metabolism and Aortic Function in Female Rats.”

The dietary approaches to stop hypertension diet, cognitive function, and cognitive decline in American older women

Well if your doctor waits long enough somebody else will solve the diet protocol dilemma for them. This still is not very specific so your doctor could still tell you you didn't follow the diet closely enough. Still waiting for the stroke prevention and rehab diets.

Description of the DASH Eating Plan  Notice no specifics. 

Salt restriction on high blood pressure is still contested. But don't listen to me, I know nothing.

Paper Raises More Questions About Salt Restriction In Heart Failure

Low-Salt Diet Ineffective, Study Finds. Disagreement Abounds.

The wrong white crystals: not salt but sugar as aetiological in hypertension and cardiometabolic disease

 

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The dietary approaches to stop hypertension diet, cognitive function, and cognitive decline in American older women

Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 01/25/2017 Berendsen AAM, et al.

Analysts analyze the relationship between long–term adherence to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet with cognitive function and decline in older American women. These discoveries in the biggest cohort on dietary patterns and cognitive function to date demonstrate that long–term adherence to the DASH diet is essential to keep up cognitive function at older ages.

Methods

• For this study they design a prospective cohort study.
• The Nurses' Health Study, a cohort of registered nurses residing in 11 US states.
• A sum of 16,144 women from the Nurses' Health Study, aged ≥70 years, who underwent cognitive testing a total of 4 times by telephone from 1995 to 2001 (baseline), with multiple dietary evaluations between 1984 and the first cognitive examination.
• DASH adherence for each individual was based on scoring of consumption's of 9 nutrient or food components.
• Long–term DASH adherence was calculated as the average DASH adherence score from up to 5 repeated measures of diet.
• Primary results were cognitive function calculated as the average scores of the 4 repeated measures, as well as cognitive change of the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status score and composite scores of global cognition and verbal memory.

Results

• In this study greater adherence to long–term DASH score was connected with better average cognitive function, irrespective of apolipoprotein E ε4 allele status [multivariable–adjusted differences in mean z–scores between extreme DASH quintiles = 0.04 (95% confidence interval, CI 0.01–0.07), P trend = .009 for global cognition; 0.04 (95% CI 0.01–0.07), P trend = .002 for verbal memory and 0.16 (95% CI 0.03–0.29), and P trend = .03 for Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status, P interaction >0.24].
• These differences were equivalent to being 1 year younger in age.
• Adherence to the DASH score was not connected with change in cognitive function over 6 years.

Go to PubMed Go to Abstract Print Article Summary Cat 2 CME Report

Paper Raises More Questions About Salt Restriction In Heart Failure

You'll have to have your doctor weigh in on this. I wonder what this means for blood pressure? It seems that salt restriction is based on appeal to authority.
http://cardiobrief.org/2015/12/28/paper-raises-more-questions-about-salt-restriction-in-heart-failure/