According to a study published in The Lancet, reducing sodium intake could help improve certain symptoms in patients with heart failure. Although it did not lower hospital visits or deaths in them, the study found that it could ease their symptoms such as swelling, fatigue and coughing.
The research involved 806 heart failure patients at 26 medical centers in Canada, the United States, Columbia, Chile, Mexico and New Zealand, out of which half the participants received usual care, while the other half received nutritional counseling on how to reduce their dietary salt intake.
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Prior to the study, the participants had an average of 2,217 mg of salt per day. During and after the study, those who got usual care consumed an average of 2,072 mg of sodium daily, while people on nutritional counseling reduced their salt intake to an average of 1,658 mg per day.
Although the researchers found no significant difference in the two groups, they observed consistent improvement of symptoms in the low-sodium group.