A full decade ago, Dr Eric Topol wrote an editorial in Medscape about salt. It was titled “Topol on Salt: Time to Shake the Sodium Guidelines?“
In the exam, you are expected to recommend sodium restriction to about 2g of sodium a day. This is 5g of NaCl (table salt) because sodium weighs 23 and chloride 35, meaning 2g of Na comes with 3g of Cl.
While salt may increase blood pressure in some people, the reality is we only care about blood pressure because of its impact on mortality. Given that this dataset of > 100,000 people in 17 countries shows that 4g of sodium is optimal, the current guidelines might kindly be called outdated or, more frankly, just wrong.
