THE SALT-POOR DIET IN HYPERTENSION

To the Editor: —I followed for some time with great interest the controversy on the value of a salt-poor diet in the treatment of hypertension. I have used a salt-free diet in fifty-seven cases of arterial hypertension. Of these fifty-seven patients, in whom renal injury was excluded by careful functional tests, forty-seven (73.6 per cent) have shown improvement to varying degrees. Five (8.5 per cent) have held a normal blood pressure for at least three years, and the others have blood pressures below 160 systolic and around 100 diastolic. Twelve did not react at all. Later on, one developed a renal lesion and died of apoplexy. The others I lost sight of. In two of these cases, a striking example was furnished of how even a slight increase in the salt content may offset, or entirely, obviate, response to salt-poor diet. One patient was a woman who showed a hypertension