Are You Eating Too Much Salt? 5 Risks to Know

Medically reviewed by Elizabeth Barnes, RDNMedically reviewed by Elizabeth Barnes, RDN

Salt is a mineral made up of sodium chloride that is essential for sustaining life. Your body uses salt to balance fluids, conduct nerves impulses, move muscles, and absorb nutrients. And on the more experiential front, salt brings out the flavor of many foods.

However, with the plethora of ultra-processed foods available nowadays—which mainly use salt as a preservative ingredient—it's easy to eat too much salt, which can have a negative effect in your health.

Keep reading to learn more about how much salt you should be eating, and what happens if you eat too much salt in your diet.

Risks of Eating Too Much Salt

Eating a diet high in salt usually is a result of eating too many processed foods. If the majority of your diet is balanced and made up of whole foods like meats, fruits, and vegetables, you’ll likely be taking in a lot less salt than the average person.

While salt is a necessary part of a balanced diet, eating too much may cause the following problems.

1. Water Retention and Bloating

When you eat a high-salt meal, your body will retain this extra sodium, and then try to dilute it with water, causing you to retain water. Excess water and sodium can cause harmless, but unpleasant, stomach bloating, but it can also lead to edema. Edema is the medical term for swelling in the body. People notice edema more often in their ankles and hands, though it can occur anywhere in the body.

That said, edema could be a sign of something more serious, so if you find that meals with extra salt cause edema often, you should discuss this with your healthcare provider.

2. Increase in Blood Pressure

Because eating a lot of salt can increase the amount of water your body holds onto, this increase in water means a higher blood volume and possibly increased blood pressure.

Some people tend to be more salt sensitive, while others can eat more salt without seeing any effect on their blood pressure. People who are more sensitive to salt may experience hypertension (high blood pressure). This means that the increased blood volume in your veins is pushing too hard against your artery walls, which makes your heart work harder than normal to keep blood flowing. If left untreated, hypertension can lead to many health problems, like heart failure, stroke, or kidney disease.

Many studies have shown a connection between high salt intake and hypertension, but it’s important to note that no trials have been done on healthy people with normal blood pressure, so it's not completely determined if reducing salt is important for everyone.

The science is unclear on whether eating too much salt can lead to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Some studies show a U-shaped curve, meaning the risk of CVD increases at both the high and low ends of salt intake.

3. Thirst Increase

Eating foods high in salt, like chips or nuts, can make you feel more thirsty. That’s your body telling you it has an imbalance of water and sodium. You’ll likely drink more water to balance it out, but if you have high blood pressure or edema, it could worsen both issues. However, drinking water after eating a lot of salt is important, otherwise you could become dehydrated.

Another effect of drinking more water is that you'll likely need to urinate more. Running to the bathroom often may be annoying, but in addition to that, each time you urinate, you lose calcium. Calcium is an important mineral and electrolyte that your body needs to clot blood, regulate your heartbeat, and more.

4. Kidney Stones

If you don’t drink enough water but your diet is high in salt, you may be at increased risk of kidney stones. Kidney stones are made of calcium and oxalate or uric acid, and if they get big enough, they can cause pain.

Because eating too much salt can increase how much calcium runs through your kidneys and out into your urine, it can put you at an elevated risk of developing kidney stones. Staying hydrated can lower your risk.

5. Risk of Stomach Cancer Might Increase

More than 25,000 new cases of stomach cancer are diagnosed every year in the U.S. Some studies show a link between excess salt intake and stomach cancer. However, scientists don’t know exactly how, or if, salt increases stomach cancer risk, or whether stomach cancer risk is increased by the other foods eaten with salt.

Some of the data isn’t very strong, and there are genetic and lifestyle factors in every person that make the data less conclusive. Researchers say more research is needed before anything can be known for certain.

How Much Salt Should You Eat in a Day?

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends less than 2,300 milligrams of salt per day for all ages, which is about a teaspoon. While that may be a good guideline for people who live with kidney disease, or heart issues, many studies show that the limit should be increased for the rest of the population.

The problem with nutrition studies is that many of them are observational studies only and don't prove causation. In order to prove a direct relationship between salt and health, you’d need a randomized controlled trial.

There are several good quality randomized controlled trials that looked at salt intake and heart disease and death from any cause. These trials looked at hundreds of thousands of people and found:

• People who eat excessive amounts of salt are at higher risk for heart disease and death

• People who eat very little salt are also at higher risk for heart disease and death

• People who eat between 2,600-5,000 milligrams of salt per day have the lowest risk. 
  

That's quite a bit more than the 2,300 milligrams the dietary guidelines call for. The science is still out on salt intake, but it looks like we crave salt for a reason: our bodies need it. The key is to make sure you aren’t getting too much or too little. Cutting down on the amount of packaged foods in your diet will do more to reduce sodium in your diet than just putting away the salt shaker.

It’s important to remember that not all high-sodium foods will taste salty. Some, like soy sauce, definitely taste salty. But other foods can have high levels of sodium without tasting salty, like breads and cereals. Over 70% of the excess sodium in our diets come from processed or packaged foods.

When To See Your Healthcare Provider

If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, edema, or kidney issues, you should speak with your healthcare provider about your specific situation and how much salt you should eat.

For the average person, reducing how many processed and packaged foods you eat will lower the amount of sodium in your diet.

A Quick Review

Salt is an essential mineral your body needs but can't produce on its own. However, with the prevalence of ultra-processed foods in the American diet nowadays, it's easy to eat too much salt, which can cause an increased risk in hypertension, kidney stones, stomach cancer, and other conditions.

If you have a condition such as high blood pressure, edema or kidney stones, speak to your healthcare provider about how much salt you really need in your diet, and how to work to reduce your intake.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do I do if I eat too much salt?

If you overdo it on salt at mealtime, you can drink a tall glass of water to flush out the excess. You can also try to increase your potassium intake through foods like potatoes, avocados, or bananas. Your body needs a balance of sodium and potassium, and foods with potassium can help control blood pressure by blunting the effects of sodium

How do I cut back on salt?

If you need to cut down, focus on fresh foods instead of processed foods, and add salt to taste, unless directed otherwise by your healthcare provider. If you reduce the amount of processed foods you eat, you’ll reduce your sodium intake dramatically.

For more Health.com news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Health.com.