Salt Scare or Science Scam? Nigerian Researchers Face Backlash Over Anti-Salt Campaign

Experts and journalists challenge University of Abuja study team, demand evidence for claims linking salt to hypertension as hospitals continue saving lives with salt-based treatments.

In recent days, a group calling itself the Nigeria Sodium Study Team, under the Cardiovascular Research Centre, University of Abuja, announced a campaign tagged “Protect Your Heart, Reduce the Salt!”. The campaign makes sweeping claims that salt intake is directly responsible for hypertension, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases in Nigerians.

While this announcement has already started generating attention, closer scrutiny reveals a disturbing lack of rigorous scientific evidence behind the group’s claims. As investigative journalists and researchers committed to truth in public health discourse, we find it necessary to condemn the campaign and caution Nigerians against being misled by half-baked, donor-driven narratives.

The Nigeria Sodium Study Team insists that salt is a direct cause of high blood pressure. Yet, decades of peer-reviewed research have shown that the relationship between salt and hypertension is far more complex. For instance, the Intersalt Study (1988), one of the largest international research projects on dietary salt and blood pressure, concluded that salt intake was not a uniform predictor of hypertension across populations. Some communities with high salt consumption recorded lower blood pressure levels compared to those with minimal salt consumption.

Furthermore, a 2011 Cochrane Review analyzing multiple controlled trials concluded that reducing salt intake had only a very modest effect on blood pressure, and in many cases, the impact was negligible. To date, no single study has definitively proven that salt itself is the root cause of hypertension. Other factors such as genetics, obesity, stress, lack of exercise, and excessive alcohol consumption play far more significant roles.

If salt were truly the poison this campaign suggests, why then is it the foundation of medical treatment worldwide? Every hospital in Nigeria, and indeed globally, relies on saline drips (0.9% sodium chloride solution) as the very first line of patient care. From dehydration cases to emergency resuscitation, salt in controlled form is what stabilizes the human body. It replenishes fluids, restores electrolytes, and supports essential cellular function.

To suggest that salt is inherently dangerous while hospitals continue to administer life-saving salt drips daily is, at best, a contradiction and at worst, deliberate misinformation.

It is also telling that many of these salt-reduction campaigns are linked to foreign-funded research agendas. With Bill Gates–backed initiatives already under scrutiny for failed projections during the COVID-19 pandemic, one must ask: Is this another case of imported science being imposed on Nigerians without cultural or contextual relevance?

Public health must be based on transparent, verifiable, and context-specific evidence—not donor-driven sensationalism.

We therefore challenge the Nigeria Sodium Study Team and their sponsors to present their so-called “evidence” in a nationally televised health debate with independent medical researchers, dietitians, and hospital practitioners. Nigerians deserve clarity, not fearmongering.

From a biological standpoint, salt is indispensable to life. It regulates nerve impulses, maintains muscle function, and balances bodily fluids. Even spiritually, salt has long been regarded as a symbol of purity and preservation, referenced throughout the Bible as essential and good. To demonize salt is to ignore both science and tradition.

In conclusion, salt is not the villain here. What Nigerians need is balanced nutrition education—moderation, not elimination. To scapegoat salt without robust, transparent evidence is to mislead the public and undermine trust in science.

Until the Nigeria Sodium Study Team can provide credible, peer-reviewed data that goes beyond slogans, their campaign remains an ill-conceived attempt to manufacture fear where none is scientifically justified.