A new study offers fresh evidence that current salt recommendations should be taken with, well, a grain of salt.

The new study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, looks at the growing and important elderly patient population. The researchers analyzed 10-year followup data from 2,642 adults between 71 and 80 years of age who participated in a study in which they recalled their sodium intake and their heatlth subsequently observed. The authors acknowledged that their study was imperfect because it was observational and not controlled.

No significant relationship was found between sodium intake and mortality or the development of cardiovascular disease or heart failure. There were trends in favor of moderate sodium intake (1,500 -2,300 mg/d) compared with very low (<1,500 mg/d) or high (>2,300 mg/d) intake. Overall mortality was 33.8% in the very low group, 30.7% in the moderate group, and 35.2% in the high group. Similar patterns were observed for cardiovascular disease and heart failure, none of the favorable trends ever reached statistical significance.