By Andrea Hughes, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Lowering sodium intake has long been recommended to help lower blood pressure.

A new study suggests it can also reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease by as much as 25 percent and deaths from cardiovascular disease by 20 percent.

To conduct this study, researchers followed a group of participants from a sodium reduction study conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. These people had pre-hypertension and were therefore at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

This study provides unique evidence about lowering sodium intake; the few other studies of this nature have been limited and inconclusive. Nancy Cook, an associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School and researcher in this study, told Ivanhoe, "The link between sodium and cardiovascular disease wasn't really known. There had been some studies looking at it, but the quality of information on sodium wasn't as good as we have here."

There are many ways to lower sodium intake. Cook says, "A lot of the sodium that we take in is in processed foods, so reading food labels and avoiding foods that are very high in sodium would go a long way." She also notes, "I stress that dietary intake of sodium is excessively high here in the United States, as well as in many other countries, and this suggests that lowering that sodium intake can lower risk of cardiovascular disease even among those who don't have high blood pressure."

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Ivanhoe Interview with Nancy Cook; British Medical Journal, published online April 18, 2007