Health sciences professor Michel Joffres has received the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Robert E. Beamish Award for his paper on sodium and hypertension published in the May 2007 issue of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. The award, named after the journal’s founding editor-in-chief, is presented to the first author of an original research article published in the journal during the preceding three years that is judged to have the greatest (potential) impact on cardiovascular medicine.

The article, which resulted from a national study led by Joffres, found that reducing Canadians’ daily salt intake by about half would eliminate hypertension in one million Canadians and save $430 million in related health costs. The reduction would also almost double the treatment and control rate, decrease physician visits and laboratory costs by 6.5 per cent and result in 23-per-cent fewer treated hypertensive patients needing drugs to control blood pressure.