More Reasons to Go Easy on Salt

Many people who pour on the salt at mealtime reason that since they’ve never suffered from high blood pressure, they don’t have to worry about any consequences.

Think again. As a growing number of researchers are discovering, this line of reasoning is wearing thin. There are plenty of reasons why everybody needs to go easy on the salt, even those who consider themselves immune to hypertension.

“We do need salt,” says Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutrition and health specialist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and food science.

In fact, sodium and chloride, the two chemicals of which salt is comprised, are essential minerals for humans, he says.

“If we didn’t get them, we’d develop deficiency problems and would probably die.”

But that’s not the problem in the developed world — far from it, Keith says. Americans and other westerners are getting far too much salt.

“Our salt intake is many, many times what we need for survival,” Keith says. “In the West, we’re almost approaching salt toxicity.”

Unfortunately, it’s not just a problem of cutting back on salt at the dinner table. Most of the salt we consume in the course of the day doesn’t come from salt shakers but from those convenient foods we consume in the course of the day — something on the order of around 75 percent of our salt intake, according to Keith.

Typical sources include canned vegetables, canned meats, processed meats (bologna and hotdogs, for example), pickles and processed cheese.

“Even if you don’t add salt at all to your food, you still could be getting lots of it,” says Keith, adding that this is why food should be chosen wisely.

And why is it so important to be conscious of salt, even if we don’t suffer from hypertension? Because of all the other bad things that can follow from consuming too much salt.

For starters, there’s calcium loss, especially among females prone to developing osteoporosis late in life.

“The way the body gets rid of all this extra sodium that you eat is by excretion through urine,” Keith says.

The problem is that along with the sodium goes calcium, too.

“We’re finding that this loss of sodium within the urine also is accompanied by calcium — more than you should be losing,” Keith says.

But there is a third adverse health factor associated with heavy salt intake, and that is salt’s effect on Helicobacter pylori, a spiral-shaped bacterium that can live in the acidic environment of the stomach and also in the duodenum, the section of the intestine below the stomach. Researchers now believe these bacteria are a major contributor to ulcers and to gastric cancers.

“It’s not an uncommon bacterium at all — many people have it with no symptoms,” Keith says.

However, among some people, the bacteria can become virulent, leading to ulcers and, in some cases, gastric cancer. Researchers now suspect that high salt intake can contribute to this virulence, which, in turn, may lead to a greater likelihood of developing ulcers or cancer.

So, if salt is a cornerstone of the western diet, how do we avoid it? As a general rule, Keith recommends cutting down on processed foods. Instead, choose fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. Low-fat dairy products are another good bet because these products typically do not contain as much sodium, though they do contain ample amounts of potassium and calcium — a good thing because they can help you lower blood pressure. Lean meats are another good bet, Keith says.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at June 8, 2007 03:26 PM | TrackBack