Research

Hormonal

High sodium excretion (>7 g/day) is associated with a significantly increased risk of major cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality compared to moderate intake (5-6 g/day).

For South American adults, maintaining sodium intake between 5-6 grams per day appears to offer the lowest risk for cardiovascular events and death. Intakes above 7 grams per day significantly increase risk, while intakes below 3 grams per day may also carry increased risk. A universal policy of extreme sodium restriction is not supported by these findings.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Compared with sodium excretion of 5–6 g/day (reference group), participants who excreted >7 g/day had increased risks of the primary outcome (odds ratio (OR) 1.73; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.24 to 2.40; P < 0.001), as well as death from any cause (OR 1.87; 95% CI 1.23 to 2.83; P = 0.003) and major CV disease (OR 1.77; 95% CI 1.12 to 2.81; P = 0.014).
Pablo Lamelas et al. · American Journal of Hypertension · 2015

Why this rating

Large cohort study (n=17,033) with multivariable adjustment, though observational design limits causal inference.

Source

Association of Urinary Sodium Excretion With Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Clinical Events in 17,033 Latin Americans

Pablo Lamelas et al. · American Journal of Hypertension · 2015

DOI 10.1093/ajh/hpv195

cohort · n=17033Cited 29×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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