FRIDAY, Feb. 6, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Higher drinking water salinity is associated with elevated blood pressure and a higher risk for hypertension, according to a review published online Dec. 10 in BMJ Global Health.
Rajat Das Gupta, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Ph.D., from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies on drinking water salinity and cardiovascular outcomes. Twenty-seven observational studies were identified, with 74,063 unique participants from seven countries; 15 of the studies included coastal populations.
The researchers found that when comparing higher versus lower drinking water salinity, the mean differences were 3.22 and 2.82 mmHg for systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively; the pooled odds ratio for hypertension was 1.26. Across subgroups, these associations were generally consistent and were statistically significant for studies involving coastal populations and for those published after 2000. An insufficient number of studies had reliable data on coronary heart disease or stroke outcomes.
"These are modest increases at the individual level," lead author Rajiv Chowdhury, Ph.D., from the Robert F. Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work at Florida International University in Miami, said in a statement. "But when large populations are exposed, even small shifts in blood pressure can have significant public health effects. To put it in perspective, the risk level observed in this study for water salinity is like other established cardiovascular risk factors, such as low physical activity, which increases hypertension risk by approximately 15 to 25 percent."