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Is sprinkling a little extra salt on your food unnecessary? Can medicines also contain salt? Is Too Much Of It Bad For Your Kidneys? A lot can be said about salt. We ask Prof. Dr. Ron Gansevoort of the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) to separate the facts from the fables.
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Doctor Gansevoort is a nephrologist. This is an internist who specializes in kidney disease. Salt is a frequently recurring theme in his practice. “I have patients with high blood pressure or with poor kidney function. Then sodium restriction certainly comes into play.” Table salt consists for a large part of sodium. Hence the names sodium and salt are often used interchangeably.
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Unnoticed, many Dutch people ingest too much salt every day. That is known to most. Many products contain extra salt to make it tastier. But what about exactly: is too much of it bad? We present the doctor with ten statements about salt.
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Too Much Salt Is Bad For Your Kidneys – FACT
“Yes that’s right. Too much salt leads to high blood pressure. And that has a lot of influence on your cardiovascular system, of which your kidneys are also part.” “You can show with epidemiological research that people who consume a lot of salt have a worse kidney function,” Gansevoort says. “And among natural peoples, who live on isolated islands and do not take salt, you will find almost no high blood pressure. Arteriosclerosis and kidney problems are also less common among them.”
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Eating less salt reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease – FACT
“Yes, because too much salt leads to cardiovascular disease due to high blood pressure”, Gansevoort endorses the statement. “You can do something about that by eating less salt.”
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With low blood pressure it is good to consume extra salt – MYTH
“This only applies to some patients, so definitely not for everyone. In certain diseases that cause low blood pressure, the body will also not respond to more salt.”
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“Remarkably, we often see young women who have lower blood pressure, but that is not a problem. They certainly don’t need to eat extra salt,” said the doctor. “You also see lower blood pressure in people with heart failure. They are given a low-salt diet, because they tend to retain water. You should absolutely not let them eat extra salt!”
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“Incidentally, taking in more salt could lead to higher blood pressure, but only do this in consultation with your doctor,” Gansevoort advises.
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You don’t have to sprinkle salt on your food, you already get enough through your daily diet – FACT
A proposition for those who like to take up the salt spreader. Not necessary, says Dr Gansevoort: “Many foods already contain sodium. That should in principle be sufficient for your body needs. We add salt because it is a flavouring. Anything you put salt on tastes better. That’s why it’s so “addictive” and we use it so much. There is already enough salt in the natural products we eat, such as vegetables, fruit and meat. Native peoples don’t have salt shakers on the table and they get little but enough in a natural way.”
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The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a salt consumption of 3 to 6 grams of salt per day. Studies show that we consume 9 grams, or even more, every day. “Ready-to-eat products in particular contain a lot of salt, because it is a flavor enhancer. Pizzas are a good example of this. That is why they are so heavy on the stomach,” says Gansevoort.
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Finally, the doctor gives free dietary advice with this statement: “Eat as much fresh as possible. Then you reduce the risk of overconsumption of salt.”
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Alternative salts are healthier than regular table salt – NEITHER
According to Gansevoort, this statement is not unequivocally a fact or a myth. “Not enough is known about this yet. Table salt is sodium chloride. We assume that the sodium is causing the health problems. A new school of medicine says it’s the chloride. Alternative salts sometimes contain potassium chloride. So that doesn’t contain the sodium, but the chloride is.”
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“Besides, if you have really bad kidney function, you can die from potassium. For those people, potassium is certainly no better than sodium.”
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“By the way, sea salt is also just sodium chloride,” notes Gansevoort. “Just like Himalayan salt. That is in any case no better than table salt.” That an alternative salt is healthier is therefore largely a myth as far as he is concerned.
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A person can live just fine without the consumption of salt – MYTH
A diet completely without salt is not only inadvisable, but it is practically impossible, according to Gansevoort. “You always need some salt. But vegetables, fruit and meat already contain enough sodium chloride. So you always get something from it. You don’t have to add salt to anything.”
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“We are so spoiled by the overconsumption of sodium that we are going to miss it. Are you eating less salt for a while? Then you can suddenly taste the difference between different varieties of potatoes. You actually have to train yourself to eat less salt.”
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Manufacturers have agreed to put less salt in bread. This has been done step by step in recent years. “The Dutch population has actually not noticed that at all. So you can get used to a new situation. You will still find your food tasty, even if it contains less salt.”
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Medicines can also contain salt – FACT
“That statement is correct,” said Gansevoort. “This is possible, for example, if you administer medication via an IV. Antibiotics often contain a lot of sodium. Some tablets also contain a lot of sodium as an excipient, for example the medicine sodium bicarbonate. But there are few medicines that contain as much as you get with food.”
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Do you lose salt through sweating? Then extra intake is good – FACT
A little extra salt consumption during tropical days? “This is especially advised in hot weather for vulnerable people who use water tablets,” Gansevoort said. “Sometimes this is temporarily stopped, in consultation with the GP. The advice is then to keep drinking well and temporarily take some extra salt in the form of stock. Sometimes you see that people in nursing homes are given an extra cup of soup when it is hot.”
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In the Tour de France, riders also lose salt by sweating a lot. “During the ride, this is supplemented through food and drink, so that they do not get into physical problems.”
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But normal, healthy people do not need to take extra salt, is the conclusion of this statement. “The body is also wonderfully capable of maintaining balance in extreme weather.”
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Excess salt you pee out again – FACT
Salt disappears from your body through your kidneys, Gansevoort agrees: “As a kidney doctor, we can see from the urine how much salt someone is eating by measuring the sodium chloride. I can check whether people are doing well if I prescribe a low sodium diet or not.”
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Too much salt makes you fat – MYTH
Getting fat from salt? “That is really a fable,” says the Groningen doctor. “You may retain water because of salt, but that’s different from being fat. People with heart or kidney failure retain fluid and salt. They get thick ankles and become a bit heavier.”
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“And the most commonly prescribed antihypertensives, which are beneficial for the kidneys, are known to work really well on a low-salt diet. A salt-restricted diet is often part of a treatment to protect the kidneys.”
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Cut back on salt?
In conclusion: Do you not pay attention to your salt consumption every day, but do you think it would be something to reduce? The Kidney Foundation has listed a number of healthy and simple alternatives in this article: Less salt, nice and healthy.
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