Calcium, salt and hypertension.

Many people who have dutifully given up soy sauce, pickles and pretzels in an attempt to prevent high blood pressure by limiting salt may be sacrificing needlessly, a growing number of researchers now believe. For about half of those with hypertension, they say, restricting salt has little effect; for many others, the benefits are slim.

Just as salt, or sodium, has been downgraded as a culprit in the genesis of high blood pressure, other dietary suspects are gaining ground. Recent studies suggest that for a number of people it is not too much salt, but too little calcium, that sets the stage for hypertension. Experts are increasingly divided about the relative importance of these two minerals in hypertension, and patients may receive conflicting advice. Other research has suggested that magnesium and potassium also play a role.

--From the New York Times article "Calcium lack, not salt intake, may be behind hypertension" in the Ann Arbor News, 12/31/91.