ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief balanced view of the science surrounding the reputation of salt. Salt was first implicated in high blood pressure back in 1904 when researchers working in France demonstrated that high salt diets raised blood pressure in most of the hypertensive patients that were examined. Most of those who were researching the effects of salt intake on blood pressure in the first decade or so of the twentieth century focused on the importance of the chloride portion that makes up salt rather than the sodium. Salt suppressors accept that salt contributes to all of the diseases of the heart, kidney, and central nervous system that have been associated with high blood pressure. Salt suppressors are emphatic about educating people about the salt content of foods, how to decrease salt intake, and what they perceive to be the obvious and undeniable dangers of excessive salt consumption.
