Cut salt to ward off diabetes

A review of studies has found that reducing the amount of salt in diabetics daily diet is vital to warding off serious threats to their health.In the Cochrane review, the authors evaluated 13 studies with 254 adults who had either type 1 or type 2 of diabetes. For an average duration of one week, participants were restricted to large reduction in their daily salt intake to see how the change would affect their blood pressure. We were surprised to find so few studies of modest, practical salt reduction in diabetes where patients are at high cardiovascular risk and stand much to gain from interventions that reduce blood pressure, said lead reviewer Rebecca Suckling. However, despite this, there was a consistent reduction in blood pressure when salt intake was reduced. High salt intake is a major cause for increased blood pressure and, in those with diabetes, elevated blood pressure can lead to more serious health problems, including stroke, heart attack and diabetic kidney disease.