How measuring salt intake once vs. many times affects health predictions
Use of a Single Baseline Versus Multiyear 24-Hour Urine Collection for Estimation of Long-Term Sodium Intake and Associated Cardiovascular and Renal Risk
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists wanted to see if checking someone’s salt intake just once tells the same story as checking it many times over years. They found that while average salt levels stay the same for groups, individual people can look very different depending on how many times you measure them.
Surprising Findings
Half of individuals changed sodium intake tertiles when using repeated measurements, despite stable group averages.
It contradicts the assumption that a single urine test reliably captures long-term sodium habits—many people appear to fluctuate significantly over time, even if the group average doesn’t budge.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t rely on a single urine test to assess your long-term sodium intake or related health risks.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists wanted to see if checking someone’s salt intake just once tells the same story as checking it many times over years. They found that while average salt levels stay the same for groups, individual people can look very different depending on how many times you measure them.
Surprising Findings
Half of individuals changed sodium intake tertiles when using repeated measurements, despite stable group averages.
It contradicts the assumption that a single urine test reliably captures long-term sodium habits—many people appear to fluctuate significantly over time, even if the group average doesn’t budge.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t rely on a single urine test to assess your long-term sodium intake or related health risks.
Publication
Journal
Circulation
Year
2017
Authors
Rik H. G. Olde Engberink, T. Van den Hoek, N. Van Noordenne, B. van den Born, H. Peters-Sengers, L. Vogt
Related Content
Claims (3)
Measuring salt intake just once might make us think it's more or less harmful than it really is—using multiple measurements over time shows the risk could be very different, by as much as 85%.
If you measure salt intake in healthy adults using multiple urine tests over many years instead of just one, you might get a very different picture of how much salt people eat — and that can change what we think about how salt affects heart and kidney health over time.
Even though people's salt levels can vary a lot from one test to the next, the average salt level across a whole group of people stays about the same over 15 years.