How much salt is safe?

How much salt is safe?
Salt consumption appears to be a mystery that medical experts have been trying to unravel, especially how much of it that the human body can accommodate
Salt makes food taste good and when people enjoy their meal, they may end up eating more and so get fatter, develop such health problems like hypertension, diabetes and other diet –related diseases.

The logic behind the belief that everyone, be it young or old, should reduce their salt intake as an important part of “healthy’ eating is based on this premix that even lowering their salt intake will prevent high blood pressure and heart disease.

Nevertheless, salt is another food ingredient where the science and the voices of medical experts have had a hard time breaking through myths, fears and pop ideologies. The latest, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University on the subject, said contrary to long-held assumptions, high-salt diets may not increase the risk of death.

The researchers analysed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), which was conducted by the Federal Government among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. These data were compared against death records that had been collected by the government through the year 2000.

Dr. Hillel W. Cohen, lead author of the study and associate professor of epidemiology and population health at Einstein, said after taking into consideration known cardiovasular disease risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes and blood pressure, “Our findings suggest that for the general adult population, higher sodium is very unlikely to be independently associated with higher risk of death from cardiovasular disease or all other causes of death.”

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