Salt—in the form of iodized table salt and sodium—is essential to life, but in what quantity should it be featured in your diet? While getting the right amount is important, getting too much or too little can lead to health problems.
Your body is designed to process salts, however certain quantities added to food can prove too much for our kidneys to handle. This can especially be dangerous if you have pre-existing health conditions. Let’s take a look at six pros and cons of having salt in your diet…
1. Too Much Leads to Hypertension
As an article on WebMD points out, too much salt can lead to high blood pressure. It cites an experiment by the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension program (DASH) directed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute that studied the effects of salt intake.
In the experiment, three groups consumed different levels of salt from 3,300-milligrams per day down to 1,500-milligrams per day (the middle group at 2,400-milligrams daily actually was getting the recommended intake levels). There was a direct correlation between the amount of salt consumed and blood pressure levels, according to the article.
