Salt and your Health
NSalt plays many roles in food, from acting either as a preservative or a binder to helping yeast rise. It is also a cheap way to make food tastier. While most of us examine the sugar and fat content of the food we eat, very few think about the salt content and the impact it has on our body and health. A majority of Indians are putting themselves at great risk by consuming excessive salt. High salt intake leads to high blood pressure over time. High blood pressure is a leading cause of heart attack and stroke � two key factors for death and illness in India.
High salt consumption has also been associated with a number of other health problems such as high blood pressure, osteoporosis, stomach cancer, obesity, kidney disease and kidney stones.
Some common effects of excess salt on our body
High blood pressure: Eating too much intake leads to water retention in the body and raises the blood volume thus resulting into High Blood Pressure.
Salt is a stimulant: Salt stimulates the Adrenal Glands and Sympathetic Nervous System to create stress arousal. That is why salt comes under the stress food category.
Osteoporosis: Excessive salt can pull calcium from the bones making them weak More calcium is also excreted in the urine with the ingestion of more table salt.
Effect on Kidneys: Consumption of excessive salt puts a heavy burden on kidneys as they have to work harder to remove excess salt. Hence, they may weaken gradually. Kidneys cannot remove more than 4 to 5 grams of salt per day. Remaining salt not able to be excreted causes undesirable ailments in the body.
Obesity: Excess salt in the body increases the body weight. Kidneys get rid of excess salt from the body by filtering out sodium that makes up part of the salt compound. When kidneys work less efficiently after becoming weak or lowered blood supply to them (because of weak heart), they excrete sodium less efficiently resulting in more sodium retention in the body. Since the kidneys are geared to maintain a fixed proportion of sodium to water in the blood, excess salt in the body means excess water too and hence excess weight of the body.
Sodium Chloride (NaCl) is the chemical name for common salt. Salt contains 39% of sodium, an element which never occurs in free form in nature. Sodium is harmful for health. Changing lifestyle of people resulted in the increased consumption of packaged, processed and ready-to-eat foods that contain high sodium content in both urban and rural areas.
Salt is identified as one of the main causes for increased incidence of hypertension and other problems. Reducing salt consumption can reduce blood pressure and improve health significantly for most people. Even those with normal blood pressure will reap long-term health gains by reducing salt from their diet.
To be healthy, we require very small amount of sodium. Sodium is available naturally in foods. One has to calculate the sodium intake taking into account the below given sodium contents present in natural foods.
Sodium Content Natural Foods (mg. per 100 gram)
| Food | Sodium Content | Food | Sodium Content |
| Onion | 5 | Wheat | 18 | Lemon | nil | Bengal gram (Dal) | 71 | Drinking water | 1-3 | Tomato | 46 | Lentil (Whole) | 40 | Pumpkin | 6 | Potato | 11 | Cashewnut | Nil | Carrot | 36 | Groundnut | Nil | Spinach | 58 | Radish | 33 | Cabbage | Nil | Brinjal | 3 | Guava | 6 | Banana | 37 | Grape | Nil | Milk (Buffalo) | 19 | Green Gram | 28 | Egg | 129 | Bajra | 10 | Mutton (Muscle) | 33 | Cucumber | 10 | Peas (Green) | 8 | Apple | 28 |