Reduced salt intake may protect heart, kidney
Reducing salt intake may further provide benefits to your health of kidney and heart among the patients with some chronic kidney disease, a new study has claimed.
Urinary excretion of proteins, including albumin, is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Therapies that reduce such albuminuria can slow kidney function decline and also have beneficial effects on the heart and blood vessels. Currently available therapies do not eliminate albuminuria in many patients, leaving these individuals with what is known as residual albuminuria. Therefore, according to a study, reduction in salt intake can help protect your heart and Kidney.
Researchers which are led by Martin de Borst from University Medical Centre Groningen in the Netherlands, studied the two interventions that have demonstrated potential for reducing residual albuminuria: dietary sodium restriction and a drug (paricalcitol) that further activates the vitamin D receptor. In a randomised trial that have included 45 patients with CKD, each of the intervention was added to an optimised conventional treatment regimen during four 8-week periods.
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Dietary sodium restriction
The researchers found out that dietary sodium restriction may further led to a significant reduction of residual albuminuria and blood pressure, whereas the paricalcitol had no significant effect on these measures. The combination of some paricalcitol and a low sodium diet, however, resulted in the lowest albuminuria levels. “What we found was that sodium restriction provided a relatively large beneficial effect, whereas the effect of paricalcitol was small,” said de Borst.
“Thus, the impact of the combined intervention was largely affected due to the protective effect of sodium restriction,” he said. Most people usually consume twice as much sodium as the two grams per day as recommended by the World Health Association. “In our study, patients consumed on average four grams of sodium per day, which is well in line with global trends in sodium consumption among CKD patients,” said de Borst.
“Interestingly, following our intervention, which is aimed at reduced sodium intake, patients usually consumed 2.5 grams per day, which is still above the recommended level,” he said. “This moderate restriction resulted in a strong reduction in albuminuria and blood pressure, indicating that even a moderate reduction in sodium intake may provide serious health benefits,” he added. The study appears in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).
