FOOD FOR THOUGHT

It’s got a bad rep, sure, but should you bin salt entirely?

You probably think you’ve got your salt game nailed. No biggie if you chuck a few grains on your plate to elevate the taste of your vegetables, right? But while the research around salt intake is harder to follow than Brexit, the latest seems pretty clear. A study published in the journal

Hypertension suggests that, actually, you can’t offset a high-salt diet with healthy eating. Oh.

First, a return to chemistry class. Salt is a compound (comprised of two minerals: sodium and chloride) that’s essential for your body

– in small amounts. It helps your nerves and muscles function and ensures that the fluid in your body stays in the right places. For thousands of years, salt was NBD. Our huntergatherer ancestors had a naturally low-salt diet, consuming around a gram a day. Fast forward to 2018 and its preservative properties and ability to tease flavour out of the most insipid of dishes have led global average intake to hit 12g a day.

So where exactly should we stand on old sodium chloride? The 1988 Intersalt study, which found a correlation between salt intake and raised blood pressure in older people, was one of the first to highlight the risks of a highsalt diet and paved the way for salt-reduction guidelines. Further support came in 2001, with the dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) trial, which showed that altering salt intake led to a change in blood pressure, at least over 30 days. Government recommendations to cut salt consumption to no more than 6g a day (a teaspoon) shortly followed.

These guidelines haven’t escaped charges of salt scaremongering, though. Questions about the way in which previous research was conducted, combined with the fact that 75% of salt is found in processed foods, have led to the general assumption that if you follow a healthy diet, you’re probably fine – especially given that fruit and veg contain hefty doses of potassium, a mineral that can lower blood pressure. This is where the latest research comes in. Published in March, the Hypertension study looked at data from the Intersalt research, involving 4,680 adults from four countries. It found that those who had the highest salt intake had the highest blood pressure, regardless of other dietary factors – including how much fibre, potassium or other healthy nutrients they consumed.

So should you ditch the stuff? You’ll be relieved to hear the answer is no. The study only looked at the diets of adults aged between 40 and 59, and dietary data was collected over just four days, which tells us little about the long term. Besides, swerving salt can also be harmful. And given that tough workouts increase your sodium needs (you lose almost 4g of salt through sweat during a vigorous onehour workout), vetoing salt entirely isn’t wise.

But limiting your intake of processed foods and eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is still advisable – for reasons beyond salt intake. So, until we have more research, the official guidelines remain the same. As you were.