Is It Time to End the "War on Salt"?

Photo: DaGoaty

The assault on dietary salt has been growing, and salt sales have been trending slightly downward. Is this a good fight?
According to Scientific American, perhaps not:

This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.

(HT: Eric Jones)