The purpose of this review is to identify, summarize, and critically appraise studies on dietary salt and health outcomes that were published from April to July 2016. The search strategy was adapted from a previous systematic review on dietary salt and health. We have revised our criteria for methodological quality and health outcomes, which are applied to select studies for detailed critical appraisals and written commentary. Overall, 28 studies were identified and are summarized in this review. Four of the 28 studies met criteria for methodological quality and health outcomes and five studies underwent detailed critical appraisals and commentary. Three of these studies found adverse effects of salt on health outcomes (chronic kidney disease and blood pressure) and two were neutral (fracture risk/bone mineral density and cognitive impairment).
| INTRODUCTIONMeta-analyses and systematic reviews examining the relationship between dietary salt and health outcomes 1,2 have been the basis for consensus that excess salt (sodium) consumption is associated with multiple adverse health outcomes, including a positive causal relationship with blood pressure (BP). The high profile of dietary salt research has resulted in a rapidly growing literature on the health effects of dietary salt. To keep scientific, clinical, and policy stakeholders up to date with the growing body of literature, regularly updated reviews and critical appraisals of studies relating to health outcomes are published in the Journal, alternating with reviews of studies relating to salt reduction implementation programs. 6 The objective of this fourth health outcomes review is to summarize published articles on salt and health outcomes and to highlight and critically appraise the highest-quality articles that were published between April and July 2016. This article also reports on anupdated methodology developed and adopted to ensure an objective review of the most clinically relevant studies.
| METHODOLOGYA detailed description of the methodological approach used to identify published articles for this review has been previously reported.
6Briefly, articles were identified on a weekly basis through a MEDLINE search strategy, which was adapted from a previous systematic review used to develop the WHO guideline on dietary sodium intake. 1,2 Figure). Among identified articles, studies were selected to undergo a detailed critical appraisal based on the outcomes examined and methodological quality, as described below. A secondary set of articles was considered for inclusion if judged by the authors to be impactful based on novelty of findings or potential for generating public discourse or scientific controversy or for informing public health policy.Articles were selected for detailed critical appraisal considering a hierarchy of health outcomes, which were those classified based on relevance to patients ( outcome and category I to V outcomes as secondary outcomes, the study was considered for inclusion as long as it met methodological quality criteria.Met...