Dissidents and dietary sodium: concerns about the commentary by O ’Donnell et al.

<span class="paragraphSection">O ’Donnell<span style="font-style:italic;">et al.</span> claim that there are few individuals with extreme perspectives on both sides of the sodium controversy and that there are ‘few areas in public health that elicit more strident, polemic interpretations of the research literature’.<a href="#dyw292-B1" class="reflinks"><sup>1</sup></a> Yet numerous independent health and scientific organizations have reviewed the totality of evidence and have reached very consistent recommendations to reduce dietary sodium.<a href="#dyw292-B2" class="reflinks"><sup>2</sup></a> Further, mainstream health practitioners and scientists, including the World Health Organization, have strongly supported reductions in dietary sodium.<a href="#dyw292-B3" class="reflinks"><sup>3 –5</sup></a> In Canada, where O ’Donnell and his co-authors have academic affiliations, 26 national health and scientific organizations endorsed a position to reduce dietary sodium to <  2300 mg/day, the federal and provincial governments set a target to reduce dietary sodium to 2300 mg/day by the end of 2016 and leaders of organizations representing most health care professionals and about 70% of the Canadian population supported a regulatory approach to reducing dietary sod ium: Hypertension Canada [<a href="https://www.hypertension.ca/images/pdf/Sodium_Fact_Sheet_2016_Final2.pdf"...
Source: International Journal of Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research