Is salt really bad for me?

Question

I am a 41 yo female without any known health problems. I have a suitable body weight (125 lbs) for my height (5'4''). I have low blood pressure. I have never tried to cut down on salt, but an acquaintance watching me salt my salad suggested I ought to. Are there any arguments I can use to refute this?

Answer 1

Your body excretes all the sodium you eat in a day--it doesn't build up in your body.  A very low percentage of the population is sodium sensitive which can cause increases in blood pressure.  There's no easy way to know who has sodium sensitivity so that's why doctors uniformly recommend low sodium diets to people with high blood pressure.

If you way overdo it on the salt intake, I suppose you could stress your kidneys in having to remove it via urine but it sounds like you're healthy.  No need to cut back.

Answer 2

Without enough salt you can become easily fatigued and even get a headache. It is particularly important in the summer when you sweat out a lot of salt.

Don't be afraid of salt, you wouldn't get far with out it.

Answer 3

Salt is one of the four things our tongue can taste. And our body wouldn't get a pleasurable sensation from salt of it was bad. To me, salt is only bad in very large proportions.

Also salt provides us with chlorine and sodium, two vital minerals our bodies need.