The Risks of Salt
The paragraphs below are extracted from an article appearing in the New York TImes on May 8, 2001, written by Jane E. Brody, noted science writer for that newspaper.
"But, as it turns out, hypertension is only one possible consequence of a high-salt diet. A well-documented new book, "The Salt Solution" by Herb Boynton, Mark F. McCarty and Dr. Richard D. Moore, links our "salt addiction" not just to high blood pressure and its well-established consequences of heart disease and stroke, but also to osteoporosis, asthma and kidney disease and possibly ulcers and stomach cancer.
When the body accumulates more sodium than it needs, it excretes it through the kidneys in urine. And in the process, it also excretes calcium — 23 milligrams of calcium for every teaspoon of extra salt consumed. That's enough to dissolve 1 percent of skeletal bone a year, or 10 percent over the course of a decade.
This occurs in men as well as in women, and young girls who are forever snacking on salty foods are setting themselves up for future bone disease. The increase in urinary calcium can also contribute to kidney stones.
The role of salt in asthma is less clear, but a British study has linked the rate of deaths from asthma to the amount of salt used. And a second study showed that increasing the sodium intake by people with asthma rendered them more susceptible to allergenic stimuli.
Finally, there is a strong relationship in population studies between the average intake of salt and the rate of ulcers and stomach cancer. For example, in Korea, where foods are very rich in sodium from salt and soy sauce, stomach cancer is the leading malignant disease.
Salt, while not a direct carcinogen, appears to promote cancer, perhaps by injuring the stomach lining and/or aiding the damage done by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, the major cause of ulcers."
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