High salt intake linked to hardened heart, neck arteries
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Key takeaways:
- Higher salt intake was associated with hardening of heart and neck arteries.
- The association appears to be due to high salt intake raising blood pressure.
In a Swedish cohort, higher salt intake was associated with hardening of the heart and neck arteries, even in individuals with normal BP.
“This was the first study to examine the association between a high salt intake and atherosclerosis in both the heart and neck arteries,” Jonas Wuopio, MD, internal medicine specialist and doctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge and Clinical Research Center, Falun, Uppsala University, Sweden, said in a press release. “The association was linear, meaning that each rise in salt intake was linked with more atherosclerosis. The findings applied even at normal blood pressure levels, suggesting that salt could be damaging even before the development of hypertension.”
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The researchers analyzed 10,778 participants from the SCAPIS study (mean age, 58 years; 52% women) who had estimated 24-hour sodium excretion levels calculated, for which they were stratified into quintiles. Among the cohort, 9,623 underwent coronary CTA, 10,289 had their coronary artery calcium score measured and 10,700 underwent carotid ultrasound.
Higher estimated 24-hour sodium excretion levels were associated with increased odds of carotid plaques (OR per 1,000 mg increase in excretion = 1.09; 95% CI, 1.06-1.12; P < .001), higher CAC score (OR per 1,000 mg increase in excretion = 1.16; 95% CI, 1.12-1.19; P < .001) and coronary artery stenosis (OR per 1,000 mg increase in excretion = 1.17; 95% CI, 1.13-1.2; P < .001), according to the researchers.
There were no longer any associations after adjustment for BP, and after adjustment for CV risk factors other than BP, the association remained for carotid plaques but not coronary plaques, the researchers wrote.
“The results show that the more salt people eat, the higher the burden of atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries of the heart and neck,” Wuopio said in the release. “The increase in blood pressure due to a high salt intake seems to be an important underlying mechanism for these findings. Interestingly, the results were consistent when we restricted our analyses to participants with normal blood pressure (below 140/90 mm Hg) or to those without known cardiovascular disease. This means that it’s not just patients with hypertension or heart disease who need to watch their salt intake.”
WHO recommends that salt intake be limited to 1 teaspoon per day, he said.
“It’s hard to estimate how much salt we eat, so I have two tricks to help lower consumption,” Wuopio said in the release. “No. 1 is to limit the use of table salt, as this has been linked with cardiovascular health. No. 2 is to replace salt, which is 100% sodium chloride, with a salt substitute containing 70% to 80% sodium chloride and 20% to 30% potassium chloride. Well-conducted studies have shown that this approach is beneficial for heart health.”
Reference:
- European Society of Cardiology. www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases/high-salt-diet-associated-with-hardened-arteries-in-people-with-normal-blood-pressure. Published March 31, 2023. Accessed April 5, 2023.
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