Intersalt: Hypertension rise with age revisited

This article comes from the Salt Institute, the trade organisation of salt producers. It is a reanalysis of some of the data of the Intersalt study published in the BMJ in 1988. A much larger reanalysis of the study by the original authors is published on p 1249. We have published this paper from the Salt Institute because it is an interesting example of how special interest groups use data to advance their position. The paper is followed by highly critical commentaries from Malcolm Law, an epidemiologist who was not part of the Intersalt team, and by the authors of the Intersalt study. An editorial by Thelle reviews the current evidence on salt and health, while Godlee looks at the politics of the food industry and health promotion and Delamothe examines who owns data produced from large trials.