Salt Intake and Cognitive Function
- PDF / 171,560 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 51 Downloads / 180 Views
EDITORIAL
Salt Intake and Cognitive Function New Evidence Calls For Further Investigations Giovanni Rossi • Pasquale Strazzullo
Published online: 26 March 2013 Ó Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013
Reduction in dietary sodium intake is an essential component of the lifestyle modifications useful for prevention and treatment of hypertension [1]. While its efficacy has been convincingly demonstrated by randomized clinical trials, it proves difficult to implement effectively in daily clinical practice. This is partly due to an often sluggish approach by health professionals in conveying the message to their patients [2], but is also in part related to an array of psychological, social and environmental factors specific to the patient as recognised a long time ago [3]. Afsar’s article in this issue of High Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Prevention focuses on the relationship between elements of the psycho-cognitive sphere and the habitual sodium intake of hypertensive patients [4]. Among the merits of Afsar’s work are the analysis of a study population of newly diagnosed, untreated hypertensive individuals and the use of recognised gold standards for the measurement of sodium intake as well as of global cognitive function, occurrence of depressive symptoms and patients’ quality of sleep. Relative weaknesses are the not very large sample size, the use of a single 24-hour urine collection for the evaluation of the individual dietary salt consumption and the cross-sectional study design precluding the ascertainment of possible cause-effect associations. This notwithstanding, the main finding of the study, i.e. the inverse association of 24-hour urinary sodium excretion to cognitive function together with the lack of any relationship with depressive behaviour and to the quality of sleep, is intriguing and prompts a re-evaluation
G. Rossi P. Strazzullo (&) Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, ESH Excellence Centre of Hypertension, ‘‘Federico II’’ University of Naples Medical School, via S. Pansini, 5, 80131 Naples, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
of the results of previous studies that faced similar issues, albeit in a less comprehensive framework. Afsar’s results seem to be in keeping with a study on a geriatric population sample dating back to 1998 and showing an inverse relationship between the results of the Mini Mental State Examination and the serum sodium level, which is of course a much less reliable indicator of the habitual dietary sodium intake compared with 24-hour urinary sodium excretion [5]. They are also in agreement with the recent study by Fiocco et al., also conducted in a geriatric population, using a prospective design and showing that lower sodium consumption, estimated by a food frequency questionnaire, was associated with a lower rate of cognitive impairment over 3 years, especially in subjects with low levels of physical activity [6]. Another recent clinical trial attempted to assess whether dietary counselling aiming at increasing fruit, vegetable and fish consumption
Data Loading...
