adding salt to foods and hazard of premature mortality

Last edited 07/2022 and last reviewed 08/2022

Adding salt to foods and hazard of premature mortality

  • compared with the never/rarely group, always adding salt to foods was related to 1.50 (95% CI, 0.72-2.30) and 2.28 (1.66-2.90) years lower life expectancy at the age of 50 years in women and men, respectively (1)
  • study design
    • total of 501379 participants from UK biobank who completed the questionnaire on the frequency of adding salt to foods at baseline
      • information on the frequency of adding salt to foods (do not include salt used in cooking) was collected through a touch-screen questionnaire at baseline
      • found graded relationships between higher frequency of adding salt to foods and higher concentrations of spot urinary sodium or estimated 24-h sodium excretion
      • during a median of 9.0 years of follow-up, 18474 premature deaths were documented
        • multivariable hazard ratios [95% confidence interval (CI)] of all-cause premature mortality across the increasing frequency of adding salt to foods were 1.00 (reference), 1.02 (0.99, 1.06), 1.07 (1.02, 1.11), and 1.28 (1.20, 1.35) (P-trend < 0.001).
        • found that intakes of fruits and vegetables significantly modified the associations between the frequency of adding salt to foods and all-cause premature mortality, which were more pronounced in participants with low intakes than those with high intakes of these foods
  • study authors concluded (1)
    • higher frequency of adding salt to foods is associated with a higher hazard of all-cause premature mortality and lower life expectancy

The World Heart Organization (WHO) recommends that adults consume no more than 5 g of salt per day (which corresponds to 2.3 gof sodium/day) (2)

  • European Society of Cardiology guidelines characterizes a healthy diet as a daily salt intake below 5 g, or about a teaspoon, of salt per day
  • it is noted that a very low intake of sodium may not be beneficial, or may even be harmful

An editorial noted "..So far, what the collective evidence about salt seems to indicate is that healthy people consuming what constitutes normal levels of ordinary salt need not worry too much about their salt intake. Instead, to counterbalance potentially harmful effects of salt, and for many other reasons, a diet rich in fruit and vegetables should be a priority on the individual, as well as the population, level. People at high risk with a high salt intake are probably well advised to cut down, and not adding extra salt to already prepared foods is one way of achieving this. However, at the individual level, the optimal salt consumption range, or the 'sweet spot' remains to be determined.."

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