A new study has found a link between those who add extra salt to their food at the table and dying young. While medical experts have been aware of the health risks of sodium, the new research has revealed just how damaging it may be when you add a bit extra at dinnertime.
The researchers looked at 501,379 people taking part in the UK Biobank study and found that those who always added salt to their food had a 28 percent increased risk of dying prematurely. The data also showed that those who added salt had a lower life expectancy on average.
For men aged 50 who added salt to their food, 2.28 years was knocked off their lives, for women of the same age it was 1.5 years. The research looked at whether or not people added salt to their foods at the table, and did not focus on adding salt during cooking.
Study leader Professor Lu Qi, of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, USA, said: “To my knowledge, our study is the first to assess the relation between adding salt to foods and premature death."
The professor added: “It provides novel evidence to support recommendations to modify eating behaviours for improving health. Even a modest reduction in sodium intake, by adding less or no salt to food at the table, is likely to result in substantial health benefits, especially when it is achieved in the general population.”
He goes on: “Adding salt to foods at the table is a common eating behaviour that is directly related to an individual’s long-term preference for salty-tasting foods and habitual salt intake."
According to Professor Qi, In the Western diet, adding salt at the table accounts for six to 20 percent of total salt intake. The professor says that it offers a unique way to look at the association between habitual sodium intake and the risk of death.
Now Professor Qi will look to further investigate the relationship between extra salt at the dinner table and health. The medical expert and his team will look into the potential increased cardiovascular disease and diabetes risks caused by adding salt to foods.
They also plan to carry out clinical trials to investigate the effects of a reduction in adding salt on health.
Professor Qi said: “Because our study is the first to report a relation between adding salt to foods and mortality, further studies are needed to validate the findings before making recommendations.”
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