Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence (2013)
Chapter: Appendix E: Literature Search Strategy
A literature search strategy was conducted to select the scientific literature published after 2003 for the committee’s review and answer the question in the statement of task related to the potential associations of sodium intake and health outcomes. The online databases usedfor these search were Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Embase, MedLine, PubMed, and Web of Science. A broad search to include all health outcomes and a number of searches targeted at specific outcomes identified by the committee were conducted. The specific outcomes were cardiovascular disease, heart failure, hypertension, myocardial infarction, diabetes, mortality, stroke, bone disease, fractures, falls, myocardial infarction, headaches, kidney stones, chronic kidney disease, skin reactions, immune function, thyroid disease, and cancer. Table E-1 presents the search conducted in the MedLine database. The searches were conducted in consultation with the staff librarians at the George E. Brown Jr. Library of the National Academies.
TABLE E-1 Example (MedLine) of Searches to Identify Relevant Literature on Sodium Intake and Health Outcomes
| Search No. | Search Terms | Number of Hits | ||
| 1 | Sodium, Dietary/or Sodium Chloride, Dietary/or Diet, Sodium-Restricted/ | 4,022 | ||
| 2 | 1 and (health or disease$ or condition$). mp. [mp=title, abstract, original title, name of substance word, subject heading word, protocol supplementary concept, rare disease supplementary concept, unique identifier] | 1,936 | ||
| 3 | 1 and hypertension/ | 1,445 | ||
| 4 | 1 and (cardiovascular diseases/or coronary disease/or death, sudden/) | 289 | ||
| 5 | 1 and heart failure/ | 130 | ||
| 6 | 1 and mortality/ | 10 | ||
| 7 | 1 and stroke/ | 80 | ||
| 8 | 1 and (fractures, bones/or accidental falls/) | 1 | ||
| 9 | 1 and myocardial infarction/ | 22 | ||
| 10 | 1 and headache/ | 3 | ||
| 11 | 1 and kidney calculi/ | 17 | ||
| 12 | 1 and skin manifestations/ | 0 | ||
| 13 | 1 and thyroid diseases/ | 28 | ||
| 14 | 1 and immunity/ | 0 | ||
| 15 | 1 and diabetes mellitus/ | 21 | ||
| 16 | 1 and (kidney failure, chronic/or kidney diseases/) | 242 | ||
| 17 | 1 and neoplasms/ | 13 | ||
| Total | 2,687 | |||
| Total without animal or in vitro studies | 1,938 | |||
