This week You! takes a look at how consuming too much salt in your daily diet can lead to various health problems...
health
This week You! takes a look at how consuming too much salt in your daily diet can lead to various health problems...
Everyone knows that salt not only adds flavour to our foods but is also an age-old food preservative. Salt is a necessary mineral and the most common source of sodium and chloride ions, which cannot be made by the body itself, hence it needs to be consumed through our food intake. While everyone requires a certain amount of salt to stay healthy, it is easy for people to eat far more salt than they actually require. High salt intake has been linked to serious health issues, so it’s important to limit our consumption especially fast foods and processed foods.
Did you know that adults should avoid eating over 6 grams (or around about a teaspoon of salt) per day? The World Health Organization (WHO), however, estimates that the current global average intake of salt is between 9 grams and 12 grams per day. This seems significantly higher than recommended. Read on to find out how consuming too much salt in our daily diet can have negative effects on our bodies...
One of the most common problems linked with too much salt intake is high blood pressure. Blood pressure is the amount of pressure that blood puts on your blood vessel walls as it is pumped around the body. Certain factors such as being overweight, lack of exercise and, in particular, a high salt diet can raise your blood pressure, leading to heart attacks and strokes. It’s a myth that developing high blood pressure is inevitable as you grow older, keeping your salt intake down, watching what you eat and exercising regularly will help keep it under control.
Excessive intake of salt can lead to obesity. How you ask? Well, salt does not cause weight gain itself but it does make you thirsty, which leads you to drink more fluids. If the fluids you consume are sugary drinks, of course they will cause weight gain. This is a major problem for children and teenagers as one third of the fluids they drink are sugary soft drinks.
Osteoporosis is a condition which causes thinning of bones, making them brittle and prone to breaking. Most calcium in the body is stored in the bones. A high salt diet causes the bones to lose calcium, making bones weak. High blood pressure caused by a high salt diet can speed up the loss of calcium from bones, worsening the problem. Older people are more prone to osteoporosis because bones naturally become thinner. Postmenopausal women are particularly at risk of bone thinning due to the drop in the hormone oestrogen, which normally protects bone health.
Asthma is a common condition which affects one in 11 children and one in 12 adults around the world. A high salt diet does not cause asthma, but some studies have shown that it can aggravate the symptoms. If you have asthma, reducing your salt intake may be beneficial in combination with the other treatments for asthma.
Having diabetes doesn’t mean you have to cut salt and sodium out from your diet completely. However, people with diabetes should limit their sodium intake since they are more likely to have high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease, as compared to people without diabetes.
A high salt intake causes us to retain water, up to 1.5 litres, in our bodies. A high salt intake, usually due to a diet with lots of processed foods, may increase water retention. Anyone who suffers from bloating should limit their salt intake.
Dementia is a loss of brain function that affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behaviour. Vascular dementia is a common form of dementia. It is caused by a blocked blood vessel in the brain which occurs after a stroke or a series of mini strokes. Around one in three people who have a stroke develop vascular dementia. A high salt intake raises blood pressure, increasing the risk of stroke and therefore the risk of dementia.
Kidney stones are a common problem, caused by a build-up of calcium in the kidneys. Both a high salt intake and high blood pressure can cause too much calcium to be excreted, which results in a build-up of calcium and therefore kidney stones.
A high salt diet increases the risk of stomach cancer. The bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is the major risk factor for stomach cancer as it can lead to inflammation of the stomach, resulting in stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. Salt can damage the lining of the stomach, making it more vulnerable to the effects of H. pylori.
