Research

Hormonal

Very low sodium excretion (<3 g/day) is associated with a significant increase in major cardiovascular disease risk 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.

GoodSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Sodium excretion of <3 g/day was associated with a statistically nonsignificant increased risk of the primary outcome (OR 1.20; 95% CI 0.86 to 1.65; P = 0.26) and death from any cause (OR 1.25; 95% CI 0.81 to 1.93; P = 0.29), and a significant increased risk of major CV disease (OR 1.50; 95% CI 1.01 to 2.24; P = 0.048), as compared to the reference group.
Pablo Lamelas et al. · American Journal of Hypertension · 2015

Why this rating

Large cohort study, but the low sodium group had fewer events, leading to wider confidence intervals for some outcomes.

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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