Too much salt in the diet has long been blamed for high blood pressure, but health experts may have been placing blame on the wrong white crystals. A review published in the journal Open Heart concluded that the added sugar in processed foods may be contributing more to high blood pressure than salt.
In an interview with MedPageToday, James DiNicolantonio, associate editor of Open Heart, called the current sodium restriction guidelines "the greatest con in preventive nutrition in human history."
DiNicolantonio said the guidelines that lower dietary sodium in hopes of reducing hypertension are misguided and aren't backed by scientific evidence.
"Added sugars probably matter more than dietary sodium for hypertension, and fructose in particular may uniquely increase cardiovascular risk by inciting metabolic dysfunction and increasing blood pressure variability, myocardial oxygen demand, heart rate, and inflammation," DiNicolantonio and fellow researcher Sean C. Lucan, MD, MPH, wrote.
"The studies tell us that 3 to 4 grams of sodium (daily) is the level associated with the lowest risk for cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality, so why do the guidelines all tell us to consume less than 2.4 grams (2,400 milligrams) of sodium a day?" DiNicolantonio asked.
Recent guidelines from the American Heart Association encourage people to consume a maximum of 2,400 milligrams of sodium a day to lower blood pressure and to even drop to 1,500 milligrams a day for maximum benefit. The experts also recommended following the DASH diet or a Mediterranean diet to lower blood pressure.
While reductions in blood pressure have been achieved by lowering salt intake, studies found the reductions are modest — at most around 4.8 mmHg systolic and 2.5 mmHg — says MedPageToday, and it's not clear that such small decreases actually confer health benefits.
In addition, says DiNicolantonio, recent study results indicate that limiting salt actually increased death risk instead of lowering it.
On the other hand, recent studies have found that people who consume about 10 to 25 percent of their daily calories from added sugar have a 30 percent increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those whose diets included less than 10 percent of calories from added sugar. Those who consume 25 percent or more of their calories from sugar increase their risk of dying by almost 300 percent.
A meta-analysis of studies found that high sugar diets substantially increased systolic (6.9 mmHg) and diastolic (5.6 mmHg) blood pressure when compared to diets low in sugar. When the researchers excluded studies funded by the sugar industry, increases in blood pressure were even higher — an average of 7.6 mmHg systolic and 6.1 diastolic.
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