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Kraken
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Basically mice were fed diets with either 0.5%, 1.5%, 2.5%, and 4.5% sodium chloride. None of these groups’ mean lifespans differed significantly.
For comparison, the average American consumes 2360 grams of food per day and 3.4 grams of sodium per day, so a 0.14% sodium diet. But remember, this is percent sodium whilst the mouse chow was percent sodium chloride. I’ll skip the math; the 0.5% sodium chloride group’s diet is 0.2% sodium. So even the lowest sodium group consumed one-third more percent sodium than the average American.
So it’s unfortunate that the researchers didn’t include a group with lower sodium, but nonetheless: no differences in mean lifespan between each group (with an 8-fold difference between the lowest and highest percent sodium) implies that you shouldn’t worry about your sodium intake and eat pretty much as much as you want when considering longevity.
Why rodent data instead of human data?
Well, there is no controlled longitudinal human data available. It is my view that this rodent study is much more reliable than observational (correlated) human data, because I don’t think any firm conclusions should be made from observational data. Getting caught up in correlations will only cause your perceptions to deviate farther from reality.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
For comparison, the average American consumes 2360 grams of food per day and 3.4 grams of sodium per day, so a 0.14% sodium diet. But remember, this is percent sodium whilst the mouse chow was percent sodium chloride. I’ll skip the math; the 0.5% sodium chloride group’s diet is 0.2% sodium. So even the lowest sodium group consumed one-third more percent sodium than the average American.
So it’s unfortunate that the researchers didn’t include a group with lower sodium, but nonetheless: no differences in mean lifespan between each group (with an 8-fold difference between the lowest and highest percent sodium) implies that you shouldn’t worry about your sodium intake and eat pretty much as much as you want when considering longevity.
Why rodent data instead of human data?
Well, there is no controlled longitudinal human data available. It is my view that this rodent study is much more reliable than observational (correlated) human data, because I don’t think any firm conclusions should be made from observational data. Getting caught up in correlations will only cause your perceptions to deviate farther from reality.
Effect of sodium chloride on longevity in mice - PubMed
The effects of dietary sodium chloride on the longevity, body weight, and food consumption in a normotensive strain (A/J) of mice was studied. Four groups of 50 mice each were fed diets containing 0.5 (control group), 1.5, 2.5, and 4.5% sodium chloride. The mean life span was 115.2 wk in the...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
