Why Is Salt Supposed To Be Bad For You

[emmie]

is it the quantities, or what?

[emmie]

i had the nurse come around yesterday and ask me about my salt intake, i don't use a lot except a bit for potatoes, too much do you harm??

[Flonska]

The amount of salt you eat has a direct effect on your blood pressure.

Salt makes your body hold on to water. If you eat too much salt, the extra water stored in your body raises your blood pressure. So, the more salt you eat, the higher your blood pressure.

The higher your blood pressure, the greater the strain on your heart, arteries, kidneys and brain.

[chelle7272]

Mostly as it raises blood pressure increasing the risk of heart disease and strokes. It can increse risk of other things like stomach cancer and osteoporosis a well.

[emmie]

flonska
thanks i wondered why they keep on at you......

[emmie]

my blood pressure wasn't too bad i was told, and i don't eat packaged foodstuffs with lots of added salt.

[chelle7272]

There acan be a lot of 'hidden' salt in processed foods. If you are not eating too much of that and not adding salt to food (except to the spuds same as me!) you should be okay.

[emmie]

i don't use a lot of salt at all in retrospect.

[Flonska]

Emmie, glad to have helped clarify.

Thank you also for the BA!

[emmie]

you're welcome.

[theprof]

Oh dear, once again the likes of CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) have brainwashed the community at large. Fionska, you are incorrect to say that "The amount of salt you eat has a direct effect on your blood pressure". It's not as simple as that.

Let's get the facts straight: salt has never been proved in case studies per se to be the cause of increased blood pressure in humans or other mammals despite what you read. The cause is Sodium, NOT sodium chloride, the latter being the chemical name for table salt.

The reason for the worldwide confusion is that CASH and other think tanks/governments have never been able to convince the general public that Sodium should be restricted. Why? It's because any given quantity of table salt contains only 39% of pure sodium and the academics/nutritionists/dieticians etc that promote salt reduction have never been able to convince the general public that sodium is the threat not sodium chloride. It's stupid because some of the people that sit on CASH and other organisations are amongst the best academics in the world and have the ear of governments. They cannot convince the public because there is no real simple way of conveying the percentage calculations to the general public so that everyone from a child to a pensioner has the ability to work out this figure in their head. They've tried by suggesting the public consider one third of a salt declaration should be considered to be sodium and the rest other stuff, but it really has not worked.

(Continued)

[theprof]

So why is this important? Let's take an example. Salt and vinegar flavoured crisps. UK and EU food labelling regulations permit the declaration on the ingredients list of sodium or salt. It's up to the manufacturer. Now a lot of people know that the daily maximum recommended intake for an adult of salt is 6 gram. This has been the case for years. However, take a look at the ingredients list on a pack of Salt and vinegar crisps. Almost always the "salt" content will be declared. Why? Well it's because the sodium content figures huge and exceeds the daily maximum sodium intake because it not only includes the 39% sodium, but the monosodium glutamate added as a flavour enhancer and a huge quantity of sodium diacetate which gives the crisps the vinegary flavour.

Processed meat contains not only sodium chloride but sodium nitrite, sodium phosphates, sodium polyphosphates and other sodium salts so that when manufactures declare the salt content, they are not revealing the large, unhealthy additional sodium content derived from other sodium salts.

Corned beef is made my soaking beef brine and if that is not bad enough for those on a low sodium diet, it contains one of the highest permissible quantities of either sodium nitrate or sodium nitrite.

The information I've provided above can be verified by discussion with anyone with a modicum of knowledge of chemistry from "A"level. Just look up. Here's a reasonably simple link:

https://www.thoughtco.com/difference-between-sodium-and-salt-608498

Try this too:

https://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm315393.htm

Which foods contain high elemental sodium? You can include most processed meats (sodium nitrate/sodium nitrite), Chinese food (monosodium glutamate), vinegar flavoured foods or vinegar flavour granules (sodium diacetate/sodium acetate)

Everyone should be trying to reduce their Sodium intake. Sodium intake is not the same as Salt intake. In the UK, we should not be exceeding about 2.4g of sodium daily. This is the figure the government and food manufacturers should be emphasising rather than the salt figure.

[theprof]

Other sodium containing additives in food include, sodium inosinate, sodium guanalate, disodium 5 ribonucleotide (all flavour enhancers), sodium ascorbate (an antioxidant), sodium erythrobate (a type of red food colouring) and sodium metabisulphite ( a preservative). All these additives push up a truthfully declared sodium figure on food packaging but have no influence on the declared salt figure.