In the kitchen, Salt almost feels like cheating. Adding the right amount of salt can immediately enhance the flavor of almost all delicious dishes-but this cheap and abundant ingredient has an obvious disadvantage.
In short, too much salt is bad for you. More specifically, too much sodium is harmful to you. Sodium is one of the two main elements that make up salt (also known as the compound sodium chloride).
Many previous studies have investigated the link between high dietary sodium levels and health problems such as increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
At the same time, other studies have also mapped the health effects of insufficient potassium in the diet, which also has a negative impact on blood pressure.
It happens that a product commonly found in many supermarkets can alleviate both problems at the same time: the taste of salt substitutes is similar to salt, but the sodium content is reduced and the potassium content is increased.
However, despite the promise of salt alternatives, there is a lack of large clinical trials measuring their impact on stroke, heart disease, and death, so their effectiveness remains questionable.
Now, a large study conducted in China seems to indicate that almost everyone will benefit from the conversion.
Bruce Neal, a clinical epidemiologist at the George Institute for Global Health in Australia, said: "Almost everyone in the world eats more salt than they should."
"If the world would have salt Switch to salt substitutes and millions of people will die prematurely every year.”
In this study, Neal and his team surveyed more than 20,000 villagers from rural areas in China who had had strokes or blood pressure. Participant with a bad history. These people came from a total of 600 villages, and the average age at the start of the experiment was about 65 years.
In the experiment, half of the participants provided salt substitutes for free during the experiment (designed as a five-year experiment, but slightly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic).
gives them salt substitutes with less sodium and added potassium, and encourages them to use it more cautiously than usual salt to minimize overall sodium content.
At the same time, the other half of the villagers served as a control group,Continue to use salt when cooking and preparing food as usual.
At the end of the study, the health outcomes of the two groups were significantly different.
Overall, about five years after the start of the experiment, more than 4,000 participants died, more than 3,000 people had strokes, and more than 5,000 people suffered from some major cardiovascular event—a sad and unfortunate result, but consider It is not surprising to their age and the state of health at the beginning of the trial.
However, in these results, compared with ordinary salt users, the salt replacement group was significantly less likely to have a stroke (29.14 events vs. 33.65 events per 1,000 person-years), and the probability of major cardiovascular events was also Lower (49.09 events vs. 56.29 events) and death (39.28 events vs. 44.61 events).
researchers said that their results effectively confirmed the previous model in China, which showed that salt substitution across the country can save about 460,000 lives every year, just to prevent the health effects of excessive sodium intake. Impact-related premature death.
By extension-this part is hypothetical-the researchers suggest that if people around the world switch from ordinary salt to healthier, slightly adjusted alternatives, the same simple alternatives will save millions every year Human life.
One potential barrier to seeing these protective effects may be due to the different ways of producing food in different countries.
"In rural China... generally do not use processed food; every family adds dietary sodium chloride when preparing food," commented Julie R. Ingelfinger, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital who was not involved in the study Explains about the research.
"In contrast, in most parts of the world, commercial food preservation will add a large amount of sodium chloride to the diet, and the use of salt substitutes does not completely account for the majority of salt intake."
An answer It may not only be replaced by salt in the home kitchen, but also in the industrial kitchen, where commercial processed food is produced.
researchers said,In terms of cost, there is not much difference. The cost of replacing salt is about 50% higher-but considering the price of ordinary salt (about 1.08 US dollars per kilogram in China) and the small amount usually needed in cooking, substitute it It is quite affordable, especially considering the benefits.
"Although salt substitutes are a bit more expensive than regular salt, their cost is still very low-they can be converted for just a few dollars a year," Neal said.
"This is simply the most valuable research I have ever participated in."
The survey results are reported in NEJM.
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