The Male Health Center

Salt recommendations

How much is too much—or not enough?
Advice about dietary salt surely ranks among the most confusing. Little more than a decade ago salt was a demon for many people. Cutting salt intake was one of the first things a physician would suggest to a person with high blood pressure. At the same time, some people promoted salt as an athletic aid. Athletes were being advised to heap it on to offset salt they lost from sweating.

Not surprisingly, neither approach turned out to be as satisfactory or simple as it first appeared. A huge study conducted in 32 countries showed in 1988 that salt intake and blood pressure don't go hand in hand. The Chinese, for example, eat 75 percent more salt that Americans, but their blood pressure is only slightly higher on average. For that matter, as a nation we eat just about the same amount of salt as we did 100 years ago, yet more and more Americans have high blood pressure.

So was the salt alert a false alarm? Not necessarily. Although there is no clear link between high blood pressure and salt intake for the population as a whole, some people (particularly African-Americans) do see an improvement in their blood pressure when they cut down on salt. (It's also worth noting that it sometimes goes the other way.) The best approach if you have a blood pressure problem is to talk to your doctor about it and perhaps give salt reduction a try.

What about those heavy sweating athletes? Are they at risk of running short on salt? Not likely. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, salt supplementation shouldn't be necessary unless you sweat away 5 to 7 percent of your body weight on several consecutive days.

Consider what that means: If you weigh 150 pounds, that translates to sweating off 7-1/2 to 10-1/2 pounds (on the order of a gallon!) of liquid each day for several days. Top marathon runners often lose that much water in an event, and football, basketball and hockey players sometimes do in the course of a game. But they don't often go at it that hard on several consecutive days. Clearly, few people need to worry about replacing salt lost during exercise.

For most us, our bodies do a marvelous job of maintaining just the right salt balance. Use it in moderation, and you should enjoy good taste without ill effects.

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