ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997 TAG: 9704080090
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DALLAS
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Dutch study indicates a low-salt diet may be important even to fetuses and newborns.
The amount of salt in infants' diets could affect their blood pressure later in life, researchers say.
In the study of 167 Dutch children, those who had been on a low-sodium diet during their first six months of life had lower blood pressure 15 years later than those who ate a normal amount of sodium as babies.
The researchers, led by Johanna M. Geleijnse of Erasmus University Medical School in the Netherlands, speculated that salt might affect infants' sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body's response to alarm by speeding the heart rate and raising blood pressure. Another possible explanation is that high levels of salt in infancy could damage immature kidneys, which could affect blood pressure later in life.
``Environmental exposures in utero and in infancy may be more important in relation to cardiovascular disease than exposures in adulthood, as `programming' of different systems and organs in the body occurs very early in life,'' the researchers said.
The study was published Monday in Hypertension, a journal of the American Heart Association.
``I'm very impressed,'' said Dr. Norman Kaplan, head of the hypertension division at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. ``Even though it's not a massive study and there's a lot of explanations, it's the first time to my knowledge this has been shown in people.''
The low-sodium diet in 1980, at the start of the experiment, contained 120 milligrams of sodium per day, or about five-eighths of a teaspoon of table salt. The normal amount of sodium was defined as 330 milligrams per day, or about 1 1/2 teaspoons.
One of the best-selling U.S. formulas, Abbott Laboratories' Similac, contains 27 milligrams of sodium per 5-ounce serving, or 270 milligrams for the typical 10 servings per day. Abbott's Isomil, a soy formula, contains 44 milligrams per serving.
After adjusting for height and weight, education, mother's blood pressure and other factors, researchers found that systolic blood pressure - the higher of the two numbers - was 3.6 points lower in the low-sodium group than in the normal-sodium group. Diastolic blood pressure was 2.2 points lower.
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