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Science

Adding Salt To Food at Table Can Cut Years Off Your Life, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 163

Posted by msmash from the PSA dept.
Adding salt to meals at the table is linked to an earlier death, according to a study of 500,000 middle-aged Britons. From a report: Researchers found that always adding salt to food knocks more than two years off life expectancy for men and one-and-a-half years for women. This does not include seasoning during the cooking process. The study did not definitively rule out other factors, such as salt consumption being a proxy for a generally less healthy lifestyle, but the team behind the work said the evidence was compelling enough that people should consider avoiding seasoning their meals.

"To my knowledge, our study is the first to assess the relation between adding salt to foods and premature death," said Prof Lu Qi of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, who led the work. "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." The findings were based on research involving more than 500,000 participants in the UK Biobank study, who were followed for an average of nine years. When joining the study between 2006 and 2010, they were asked, via a touchscreen questionnaire, whether they added salt to their foods and how often they did so.
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Adding Salt To Food at Table Can Cut Years Off Your Life, Study Finds More

Adding Salt To Food at Table Can Cut Years Off Your Life, Study Finds

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  • Study (Score:5, Funny)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @02:13PM (#62693772) Journal

    The study didn't account for people killing themselves because of flavorless food.

    • Or, maybe, the people who didn't add salt to their food were too weak and/or depressed to interact with that touchscreen.

      • Re:Study (Score:5, Funny)

        by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @02:22PM (#62693808)
        Well thank god I've been adding plenty when I cook. Looks like that’s got the green light.
      • In the very hot summers we are now experiencing medical advice has been to add extra salt to compensate for the salt lost in perspiration. At the age of 96, if I lose a couple of possible years it might be a relief to get it over with.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rahmrh ( 939610 )

          Low sodium is a problem for older adults(70+), but not so much sodium is the issue for younger.

          The switch from having to be careful to not get too much to being careful to get enough is tricky and often not clear until an ER/DR visit for not feeling well happens.

          • When I was undergoing USAF basic training back in WWII in Biloxi in 1944 we trainees all took salt pills to fight the loss of salt in the summer heat.

        • Re not good (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Boolean algebra ( 9706102 )
          Well no, the salt you loose is potassium chloride, nor sodium chloride. Too much sodium can actually work against hydration, your system will send more water to digestive functions. When I was playing basketball the coach would pass salt pills to all of us at halftime and it made me sick. Later one of the starters took pity on me and told me not to swallow the pill and spit it out unseen and rinse my mouth out, helped my game a lot. Proper tool for the job always.

          • It's possible to be low on all of these. Potassium, sodium, and chloride. Has happened to me. Potassium is easily corrected with supplementation. Sodium and chloride, not so much.

    • Simple Health Test (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Healthy eating is actually quite simple: If it tastes good, it's not good for you. Healthy food tastes like cardboard (unsalted cardboard).

      Eating and working like a medieval peasant is the way to stay healthy.

    • Re:Study (Score:4, Insightful)

      by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @09:16PM (#62694924)

      Funnily enough I've noticed in my personal circles a direct correlation between smoking and being a salt shaker aficionado. I'd draw a presumption that the people who salt the crap out of their food do it because their smoking has killed their taste buds compared to nonsmokers, so the death rate increase probably has at least a bit to do with the cancer sticks.

  • You'll excuse me if... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11, 2022 @02:18PM (#62693790)

    I'm going to take this study with a grain of salt.

  • Sprinkling salt is something people do without thinking. My parents sprinkled salt on french fries in restaurants when visiting the US, and those fries had already been given the default super-high salt loading by the restaurant chain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      This. In general, most restaurant food is very oversalted... except in higher-end restaurants.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rahmrh ( 939610 )

        The higher end restaurant's make it from scratch so aren't adding salt (and other sodium containing ingredients) to preserve it and make it reheat reasonably.

        Very little that can be bought pre-prepared in the frozen aisle is even close to reasonable on sodium. And the non-scratch restaurant's are getting their dishes made in a very similar process to what is sold on the frozen aisle.

        And I always taste my food first, never assume it needs salt. I wonder how many don't even taste test it first and just

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Malc ( 1751 )

        Having spent most of the C19 pandemic making all meals at home, I now find buying prepared/restaurant food inedibly salty at times. I'm still making my own lunches even though I go to an office, which has the bonus of saving a lot of money. I can also do without the headaches, additional night time trips to the bathroom or blood pressure risks that come with excess salt. There's so much salt in foods already that there's little reason to add more at the table.

        Of all the comments on this story about flavo

    • What about the ketchup?

  • Eating more food. (Score:3)

    by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @02:22PM (#62693812) Homepage Journal

    It could be that adding salt encourages overeating and results in obesity.

    • Or that people who oversalt their food tend to be smokers. Just from casual anecdata I've seen a lot of smokers who dump salt on their food, probably because smoking has dulled their sense of taste.
    • ...or it could be that there is some genetic link between less responsive salt tastebuds and early death. As the health warning on every cargo-cult science paper like this should read: correlation does not imply causation.
  • I eat 100% whole foods and I sprinkle salt on vegetables or other items I prepare. I doubt very much this is worse than the hundreds of milligrams you get in packaged foods. A serving of stuffing has 400mg of sodium and a serving of mac and cheese 600+.
  • I'll only live until (checks family history) 84 instead of 86, the horror.
  • Is it because the chef was so annoyed about the allegation that his food was under-seasoned he "got even".

  • Adding salt to meals at the table is linked to an earlier death, according to a study of 500,000 middle-aged Britons

    So this is either something about the UK having bad food or the UK being a bad place to live.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GFS666 ( 6452674 )

      Adding salt to meals at the table is linked to an earlier death, according to a study of 500,000 middle-aged Britons

      So this is either something about the UK having bad food or the UK being a bad place to live.

      It can VERY easily be both :)

    • So this is either something about the UK having bad food or the UK being a bad place to live.

      There's usually a strong corellation between the two.

    • Why not both?

  • Simple solution: Eat standing up.

  • Averages suck (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @02:33PM (#62693862)
    As I understand it there are certain people who cannot tolerate too much extra salt. Only those people will suffer consequences for eating extra salt. Averaging out life spans gives a deceptive outcome.

  • Not cutting all the joy out of my life keeps me from going on a rampage and killing some fools so in the grand scheme of things, I think adding the salt might be better for society as a whole.

  • There will be no spicing of the life nor celebratory behaviors. No enjoyment shall be allowed thusforth and lasthence!

  • Salt craving = micronutrient deficiency (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's well known that a micronutrient deficiency can cause you to crave salt. And that will shave years off your life. In particular, iodine insufficiency is widespread and will cause you to crave salt.

    Sodium is an essential nutrient. Some people on the standard American diet get way more of it than they need. Other people, especially those that keep up with health trends, may get less than the ideal amount. Don't adjust your salt intake based purely on generic articles like this. You need to take the time t

  • Taste Your Food First (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tempest_2084 ( 605915 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @02:57PM (#62693960)
    I used to be a huge salt fiend until I got married. My wife cooks with either no salt or the minimum amount the recipe calls for and she always told me to actually taste the food first before adding salt. I was surprised at how often I found that the food actually didn't need any more salt, I had just gotten in the habit of always adding some salt to things. Of course it helps that she's an amazing cook and knows her spices (there are lots of healthy things that can mimic salt to a degree). I'm fairly sure that I've cut my salt intake in half or more from where it used to be. Salt can liven up a dish for sure, but in the US we tend to use too much.

    • A good cook tastes their food as they go and adjust the seasoning or dilute the flavor as needed. A well-seasoned cook just eyeballs it and nails the amounts every time. You can always add more salt and other spices but you can't remove them and you don't need much to create flavor.

    • Salt is a flavour enhancer. It has a way of making foods taste more like what they are if that makes sense. In other words, used sparingly it causes the flavour of foods to taste more potent.

      However, with certain foods, particularly starches, salt is the flavour. Have you ever tried eating an unseasoned french fry, baked potato, bread or plain pasta? Starches have no flavour of their own to speak of and require a ridiculous amount to salt to make taste good.

      I suspect that it's not the salt itself that is th

      • Salt is a flavour enhancer. It has a way of making foods taste more like what they are if that makes sense.

        People say this a lot, but no, it makes no sense whatsoever.
        Salt tastes like salt. Putting it on green beans doesn't make them taste more like green beans; it makes them taste saltier.

  • I'll take the years. They're not taking away my salt. What'll they try and take away next? Pepper?

  • These reports are odd for me, as a runner I take and know that many others take daily salt supplements. In the military while on long marches and in humid environments soldiers will be given salt tablets. Athletes must be careful not to sweat out too much salt or they'll start cramping up. So what is it? It can't be a specific number, perhaps it's like calories in vs calories out and salt intake vs salt use should be considered.

  • This might be the most worthless study ever conducted.

    • I'm still waiting for the fully funded scientific study that finally discovers that "water is wet." Because that would be the most worthless study ever conducted.

    • The study did not definitively rule out other factors, such as salt consumption being a proxy for a generally less healthy lifestyle, but the team behind the work said the evidence was compelling enough that people should consider avoiding seasoning their meals.

      Wait, what? How in the world can they conclude that? Diet, lifestyle, and health are so completely intertwined you can't possibly draw any conclusions by looking at only one factor. The chances of there being confounding factors is virtually 100%.

      It

      • Pff, if you put salt on everything you eat - according to the study you don't live as long. It is that simple of a correlation. It doesn't matter if salt eaters also generally have poor health or food habits. Salt use is an indicator of shortened life.

        Simple correlation. Sometimes people overthink things.

  • I'm dead (Score:3)

    by dromgodis ( 4533247 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @03:16PM (#62694024)

    If I accumulated all the years knocked off my life due to "science" like this, I'd be dead around 50 years before I was born.

  • An observation such as a link between people who add salt and average less lifespan is interesting, but its only the **BEGINNING** of the Science. You'll notice there were **NO** hypothesis listed in the guardian article (maybe in the research itself somewhere) as to WHY. Its amazing how we get published stuff like this so early in the scientific method. Of course if they are looking to get money for their research that would explain it....

  • Stupid broad generalizations-80s low fat deja vu (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @03:35PM (#62694074)
    Nutrition is very individualistic. Salt is an intake into a black box, the human body, of which we know very little about, especially regarding metabolism. Instead of doing a blanket statement like "salt is bad for you" how about measuring blood pressure or other ailments related to too much salt concentration. This is Deja Vu for the 80s when everyone was anti-fat and anti-cholesterol and then everyone stopped eating both and got even worse heart disease. They found out later that dietary fat and cholesterol were not the main causes of heart disease and the rush to replace oils in salad dressing with sugar made many people worse. They were treating the symptoms, but completely misunderstanding the disease and the cause. I believe the same is happening with this report.

    First of all, I am skeptical table salt is what's causing whatever is shortening these lives. However, say it was...human bodies are not deterministic. We know this now more than ever. Give two people a 1500 calorie-a-day diet and give them IDENTICAL lifestyles, same amount of exercise, relaxation, sleep, etc...you could easily see one woman remain skinny and another one gain weight rapidly, eating the same food. The same applies for sodium consumption. If you want another example, look at alcohol....some non-drinkers can handle booze well, others handle it extremely poorly. Some non-drinkers get drunk easily, others don't.

    The human body is too complex for simple rules. Get your blood pressure checked, folks and use common sense with salt...you probably need less than you're eating, but chances are, it's not what's going to take the years off your life. Don't think that because you've taken salt off the table you've added another 2 years. I'll wager you didn't.

  • This is just absolute trash. It has to be an observational study based on food questionnaires. Something along the lines of for 10 years we asked 500,000 brits what they ate in the last year. No one was tracked closely, it was not a double blind study. Plus there are many confounders. Like people who avoid salt do so because they believe it will improve their health. People like that tend to have money, see a doctor regular, do not smoke or drink. It is almost impossible for them not to have better health o

  • It's a proxy for poverty which we know decreases lifespan.

    Go listen to Huberman's pod on salt to get some science. Many people don't get enough salt and this study may have just ended several lives prematurely.

  • Am i supposed to take professor Lu Qi seriously? This sounds like another article to vaguely confuse the public/"news" site filler. Wasn't salt good for you a while ago? Then bad, then good again? Swap salt for coffee or any other food and you have an endless supply of filler articles.

  • Link to actual paper (non-paywalled) (Score:4, Informative)

    by Harvey Manfrenjenson ( 1610637 ) on Monday July 11, 2022 @04:52PM (#62694296)

    https://academic.oup.com/eurhe... [oup.com]

    (C'mon, editors, that only took me about 20 seconds to find).

    For all of you asking about confounders... yes, they did try to adjust for a lot of different confounders, including age, race, BMI, total estimated sodium intake (not just sodium from salt added at the table), and a bunch of others. How well they were able to do this, I don't know.

  • There's no link to the article, so who knows what the study conclusions are when not filtered through the Guardian. However, based upon the Guardian reporting, it seems like the headline should read

    "People who add salt to their food have shorter lifespans"

    The fact that they don't control for different lifestyles makes this less about the act of salting food and more about the personal choices of those who salt their food.

  • 1- Pay for a study that somehow manages to say that salt decreases your lifespan without actual evidence. 2- Make sure it goes viral. 3- Increase production of salt substitute. 4- ??? 5 - Profit.
  • Life is found to be terminally fatal. Film at 11.

  • Different ethnicity and weather conditions need different amount of salt as humans lose salt in sweating. What works in Sweden may not work in Sri Lanka. This is known for ages and without taking these factors into account, the study is worthless. Not even worth my two cents.

  • In a similar vein, as a Canadian who occasionally travels to the USA, I'm often surprised by how sweet American food tastes. Common foods like bread and peanut butter have a very noticeable amount of sugar added.
  • Ketchup has salt in it. So does BBQ sauce. And mayo. And mustard.

  • Clickbait, since the keyword in the headline is "can", as in might, could.

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