Salt

Salt is the most common food seasoning and food preservative used in the world. Studies and different recommendations from authorities about salt have caused people to wonder whether salt is actually healthy or not, resulting in very diverging opinions. Salt is not just simply sodium, but a mineral composed primarily of sodium and chloride. The average amount of sodium in salt is 40%.

Excessive salt intake has been linked to the worsening of multiple organs and diseases. [1] But sodium is also absolutely necessary for your body to function. This section will talk about whether salt is healthy or not, and in which amounts.

High blood pressure, arterial stiffness, stroke and kidney disease

It's scientific consensus that excessive amounts of sodium lead to high blood pressure. [2] This is thought to happen because salt would provoke water retention, therefore leading to a situation of higher blood flow volume, putting more stress on blood vessels. [3]

This is considerably important for people suffering from high blood pressure/hypertension. The current recommended intake of sodium is below 2.3g daily for young people, and around 1.5g for people of African origins, people older than 51, and people with hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease [4] --however, the population averages around 3.4g of sodium daily. Considering that sodium makes roughly 40% of salt, you'd have to eat 5g of salt to take 2g of sodium, which would be around a teaspoon of salt.

Most of the sodium in the average person's diet comes from processed foods, which are made very salty to appeal to the palate as much as possible. That said, the palate can easily adjust to lower than excessive levels of salt, so by eliminating processed salted foods and replacing them with cooked-at-home foods, it'd be pretty easy to adjust the palate to be just as pleased with a safer amount of sodium intake.

High blood pressure and hypertension have a domino effect in the well-being of your body. Long-term high blood pressure leads to eventual damage to the heart and blood vessels, increasing the risk for kidney damage, heart attack and stroke. [5] [6] Both the kidneys--because of the dense network of blood vessels in them--and the areas more vulnerable for strokes are very sensitive to high blood pressure.

With this information in mind, it'd then be important to understand what an 'excessive' amount of salt actually is.

For cardiovascular health, intakes of sodium higher than 5g daily were found to be worse in this study. [7]

However, when looking at major studies that have been conducted recently, there's evidence that an average sodium intake (3-5g/d) would be more protective against cardiovascular disease than a low sodium intake (<3g/d), suggesting that the upper safe limit of 2.3g set in 2004 should be revised. [8] In this study, 17'000 people were put to the test, and a sodium intake of <3g/d was found to significantly increase the risk for cardiovascular disease. [9]

On the contrary of recommendations, recent studies and analyses have shows the threshold of what's considered excessive amounts of salt considerably higher. In this study of 133'000 people [10] [11], a higher dose than 7g/d of sodium was found to increase the risk of cardiac events 1.23 times more than people with hypertension consuming 4-5g/d of sodium, but for people without hypertension, there was found no risk consuming 7g/d compared to 4-5g/d.

On top of that, when people with hypertension were taking <3g/d of sodium compared to 4-5g/d, the risk for cardiac events actually increased with a factor of 1.34 times higher. That means that there would be a higher risk for people with hypertension to consume not enough salt (less than 3 grams daily, 1.34 times more risk), than the risk they'd have consuming too much salt (more than 7 grams dailt, 1.26 times more risk). These results held true even when researchers excluded people with known previous cardiovascular disease.

The study also found that people without hypertension consuming <3 g/d had higher risk, with a factor of 1.26 times higher. Considering the amount of people involved in the analysis, this is solid evidence that the amount of recommended salt intake would actually be too low.

The field is definitely polarized when it comes to optimal amounts of salt, and more clinical trials need to be conducted. However, current evidence suggests that decreasing amounts of salt intake in people without high blood pressure doesn't make much of a difference, and that a sodium intake amount of 4-5g would be best (roughly 2 teaspoons of salt), while 7g/d (roughly 3 teaspoons of salt) would be a safe limit for people without hypertension, and probably a little lower than 7g/d should be the limit for people with hypertension. It's also important to note that <3g/d of sodium (roughly 1 teaspoons of salt) would be too little for either group.