Intersalt study

The study found a significant direct relationship between dietary salt intake, the urinary sodium:potassium ratio and systolic blood pressure, and between salt intake and the slope of blood pressure with age – both for all 52 populations, and for 48 populations excluding four low-sodium populations (Yanomamo and Xingu Indians of Brazil, Papua New Guinea and rural Kenya).^[1]

The results were disputed by the Salt Institute (the salt producers' trade organisation, since disbanded), who demanded that the results be handed over for re-analysis.^[2] A re-analysis was published in 1996 and the results were the same.^[3] The results have since been confirmed by the TOHP I and TOHP II studies,^[4] trials of salt reduction and blood pressure in chimpanzees,^[5][6] meta-analyses of the human clinical trial data^[7] and the SSaSS trial of salt substitute and cardiovascular disease.^[8]