A new government report draws attention to very high salt consumption in the US and strongly recommends restricting intake to no more than 1,500mg of sodium a day. That's a little under 4g of salt, about two-thirds of a teaspoonful.
Many serious health conditions are related to salt intake and can be prevented or made less severe by avoiding salt and salty food. These health problems include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease and heart attack, osteopenia (weakened bones), asthma, most cancers and many more. You may be surprised to learn that cutting down on salt also helps overweight/obese people to lose weight. In other words, fat people are sensitive to salt and slim people are not sensitive to salt.
This is because people who are overweight have a problem with fluid retention, and for them salt intake increases the fluid retention, which means that they gain more weight. When they eat less salt their bodies excrete some of the excess fluid and their weight goes down. So weight loss is dependent on reducing fluid retention. not on reducing calories or fat intake. In addition to cutting down on salt, another way to reduce the sodium and water excess in the body is to eat plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables, because these foods are rich in potassium, and potassium displaces sodium from the body, along with the water that always accompanies it.
Unfortunately when you have this problem of salt sensitivity, salt intake does not only increase your weight because of water retention, it also depletes your body of calcium, and that is how bones get dramatically weaker and this accounts for increasing numbers of badly fractured bones these days. People are being advised to increase their calcium intake and also their intake of vitamin D, which is necessary in order to metabolise calcium. But the most important action to take to strengthen bones is salt reduction. On this World Action on Salt and Health webpage is the rather amazing information: "It was calculated that a modest reduction in salt intake from 10g to 5g would have the same effect on hip bone density as an increase in calcium intake of 1000mg, a difficult amount to achieve without resorting to supplements."
Salt intake is believed to consist of about 25% from sprinkling salt onto the meal and using salt in cooking, and about 75% from processed food like bread, cheese, bacon, most breakfast cereals, etc and takeways, microwave meals and meals out.
To cut down your salt intake and benefit your health in a multitude of ways, therefore, stop sprinkling salt onto your plate, use less salt in cooking, and as far as possible cook from scratch, using fresh ingredients that are free from salt added by the food manufacturers. Heeding the salt reduction advice could literally be a life-saver for you.
Written by Margaret Wilde
Margaret is the author of www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
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