Dietary salt intake and diabetes complications in patients with diabetes: An overview

Dietary salt restriction is an essential constituent of diabetes care in preventing or slowing the development of diabetes complications, and many diabetes management guidelines include recommendations for dietary salt intake. However, descriptions of guidelines for salt intake are sometimes confined to studies of participants without diabetes or small short‐term studies of patients with diabetes. However, in response to such situations, recent longitudinal studies of patients with diabetes have reported an association between dietary salt intake and diabetes complications. Thus, this review summarizes important points in the current situation regarding guidelines on salt intake and the latest findings and future issues on dietary salt intake for diabetes care focusing on (i) the current status and issues regarding the leading guidelines for dietary salt intake for diabetes care in various regions worldwide, and (ii) findings on salt intake from recent longitudinal studies of patients with diabetes whose dietary salt intake was restricted.