Dr Hillel Cohen and colleagues from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, along with Dr Michael Alderman, president of the International Society of Hypertension, recently suggested that people who reported eating less salt than is recommended by UK and US government guidelines were 37 per cent more likely to die from cardiovascular causes than those who ate more.
The study, published in the American Journal of Medicine, was compiled from data from the National Health & Nutrition Examination Surveys in the US, and was discussed in FoodNavigator back in March.
But Heikki Karppanen, professor of pharmacology at the University of Helsinki, is less than impressed.
"With a single study with obvious flaws, Drs. Cohen and Alderman are causing confusion among consumers," he told FoodNavigator.
"Even though I'm a medical doctor and professor of pharmacology in the medical faculty of the University of Helsinki and a strong believer in the benefits of modern drugs, we have found that appropriate food changes have been, and are, much more effective in reducing the overall burden of cardiovascular and other diseases in the population than the modern drug or other medical therapies.
"One of the most powerful of such changes has proved to be the reduction of sodium content of foods."
The scientists behind the new study however claim that there is no concrete proof that lower salt diets protect against death from heart and artery disease. But this has not stopped European governments making this a key dietary objective.
The new UK voluntary salt reduction targets for example are designed to help bring down the average UK salt intake to 6g a day.
Karppanen for one believes this is the correct strategy to take. Having studied the relationship between sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium on one hand and blood pressure and cardiovascular and other diseases on the other, he is certain that that improving the mineral levels of food can turn products into 'functional foods' or 'nutraceuticals', with remarkable beneficial effects on blood pressure.
"The beneficial effects can be further enhanced by simultaneous enrichments with certain active compounds, particularly plant sterols and fish-type (omega-3) fatty acids."
The problem though, is that decreasing salt levels would mean huge decreases in the consumption of, say, beverages and, consequently, huge economical losses. But Karppanen claims that recent evidence shows that humans are genetically programmed to eat 'natural' food compositions, i.e. foods with their natural high levels of potassium, calcium, magnesium, plant sterols etc. and without any artificial additions, such as salt.
To remain healthy therefore, we should get the nutrients in approximately the same amounts and proportions as our ancestors before any experience of salt use or food processing, he says.
"However, it is possible to manufacture modern foods so that they are remarkably healthier than now by taking care of the appropriate levels of the compounds, which are most critical for our health," he concluded.
The salt industry however disagrees. The Salt Manufacturers' Association for example says that the conclusions of the Cohen study should raise major questions over the safety of current UK policy to encourage population-wide salt reduction.
FoodNavigator will report later this week on the European Salt Producers Association's first Salt and Pregnancy Workshop.