The food industry fights for salt

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Abstract
In 1988 the BMJ published data from the Intersalt study suggesting that populations with high average intakes of salt were likely to have higher average systolic blood pressures and that salt intake predicted rise in blood pressure with age.4 The salt producers' international trade organisation, the Salt Institute, criticised the study, particularly the methods used to relate blood pressure to age, and asked the investigators to hand over their raw data for reanalysis. The investigators instead performed the reanalyses themselves: these appear on p 1249,5 confirming the previous findings. The Salt Institute sent the BMJ a letter in response to the reanalysis, and this appears on p 1283,6 along with a commentary from an independent expert (p1284)7 and an answer from the Intersalt investigators (p1285).8