Increased salt intake is associated with diabetes and characteristic dietary habits: a community-based cross-sectional study in Japan

We investigated the association of salt intake with lifestyle-related diseases and also the association of habitually consumed foods with salt intake. A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from a baseline survey of 2,129 residents of Yonezawa city (980 males and 1,149 females), Yamagata prefecture. The residents were divided into three groups based on their estimated daily salt intake: low, medium, and high. In both genders, the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes increased in the order of high > medium > low salt intake (trend p<0.001). Similar trends were observed in the prevalence of hyperlipidemia in females and metabolic syndrome in males. The prevalence of diabetes in the high salt intake group was significantly higher than that in the control group (matched from the low and medium salt intake groups), even when confounding factors were excluded by propensity score matching (p<0.01). Network analysis showed that the low salt intake group had a greater tendency to habitually consume various vegetables than the high salt intake group. Our findings reveal that the prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases increased with higher salt intake. We speculate that a dietary shift to multiple vegetable consumption could have salt-lowering effects.