Sodium intake and blood pressure in healthy individuals.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate further the relationships between blood pressure and sodium intake, which have been claimed to exist, but have not been clearly established, in epidemiological studies. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: A 2-year follow up study of a cohort of 296 healthy volunteers working in the same company. RESULTS: Consistent with previously reported findings, covariance analysis in the entire population, including multivariate analysis to examine the potential influence of confounding variables, failed to identify a significant relationship between blood pressure and sodium intake or between their respective changes within 2 years. To test the hypothesis of a heterogeneous distribution of salt sensitivity, we calculated the statistical dependence between blood pressure and sodium intake using the coefficient analysis that quantifies the prevalence of a statistical link between two variables. A significant dependence (P < 0.05) between diastolic (DBP) or systolic (SBP) blood pressure and sodium intake was found in 16 and 5% of the participants, respectively. The analysis of the 2-year changes in blood pressure and sodium intake reinforced our findings. Our finding of a relationship between blood pressure and sodium intake in only a few individuals may explain the lack of a global relationship between these two variables investigated by the covariance analysis in our study.(Rho) CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that 5-16% of healthy individuals have a 'salt-dependent blood pressure' and might benefit from a reduction in dietary salt intake.