MILLIONS of Brits are at risk of deadly heart conditions because of a common ‘silent killer’, a GP has warned.
Eating lots of salt has been linked to heart issues and can increase your risk of stroke.
GettyMany Brits are suffering from ‘salt tooth’ – which much like ‘sweet tooth’ means you are addicted to the flavour[/caption]
A GP has warned that many Brits are suffering from ‘salt tooth’ – much like ‘sweet tooth’ for sugar-lovers.
Some salt is vital for our health – the sodium in table salt is an essential nutrient.
However, Government figures say Brits’ average daily intake is eight grams – two grams more than the NHS daily recommended dose, equivalent to one teaspoon.
TV GP Dr Sarah Jarvis said: “When it comes to talking about what we eat and its impact on our health, sugar is regularly at the forefront of our minds. It may come as a surprise then, that it’s excess salt we really need to tackle.”
She said that “new data paints a worrying picture about” much of the country’s “relationship with salt” with “millions” of us “putting ourselves at increased risk of heart attack and stroke”.
A 2021 study found that the NHS recommended daily amount of salt could be too much.
Published in the the New England Journal of Medicine, experts found that every 2.5 grams increase of salt each day was associated with an 18 per cent increased risk of heart disease.
The findings confirm the link between salt intake and strokes and heart disease between the range of 5 and 15g/day with the lower the salt intake, the lower the risk of illness.
High salt foods include staples in many homes, including cheese, prawns, ham, gravy granules, smoked fish, soy sauce and more.
Packaged foods such as soup, sandwiches, breakfast cereals, and tomato ketchup can be very high in salt, so it’s worth checking labels and comparing products.
How to avoid risks associated with too much salt
The simple answer to reducing your risk of sodium related heart disease would be to stop eating salt altogether.
But that can be a challenge – especially when your used to using salt to amp up flavour.
A study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found you don’t have to stop eating salt completely for you to reduce your risk.
In fact, just cutting how often you add salt to food after cooking can make a difference – although that doesn’t mean you can go wild salting your chips.
Lu Qi, professor at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans, said: “Overall, we found that people who don’t shake on a little additional salt to their foods very often had a much lower risk of heart disease events, regardless of lifestyle factors and pre-existing disease.
“This is meaningful as reducing additional salt to food, not removing salt entirely, is an incredibly modifiable risk factor that we can hopefully encourage our patients to make without much sacrifice.”