If there is no salt in food, its taste becomes negligible. Today you can’t even imagine your life without salt. You can imagine the importance of salt given that there has been a national movement for it in India. You know it as Dandi March or Salt Satyagraha. Now let us tell you in this article how important salt is for our body and how many thousands of people die from it every year.
effect of salt on the body
BBC World Service made a program about this, “The Food Channel”. This shows how dangerous salt can be for our body. However, many experts claim that salt is very important for our body. For example, Paul Breslin, professor of nutritional sciences at Rutgers University of America, tells the BBC: “Salt is essential for life.”
Indeed, salt is very important for active human cells. Apart from this, if we don’t consume enough sodium, we can also die. In fact, sodium deficiency can cause a condition called hyponatremia, which can lead to serious problems like confusion, vomiting, seizures, irritability and coma.
Salt consumption and death
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is necessary to consume 5 grams of salt in the daily diet. 5 grams of salt contains about 2 grams of sodium, which is equivalent to one teaspoon. However, people not only consume 5 grams of salt, but use double that amount. According to the WHO report, people consume an average of 11 grams of salt per day worldwide. As a result, the risk of heart disease, gastric cancer, osteoporosis, obesity and kidney disease increases.
When it comes to deaths caused by salt each year, the World Health Organization estimates that approximately 18.9 million people die from salt worldwide each year. Salt does not play a direct role in these deaths. Rather, salt plays a role in the onset and progression of diseases that lead to death. This is why health experts always recommend using salt to a minimum. This kind of advice is also given to people regarding sugar.
Check out the health tools below –
Calculate your body mass index (BMI)
