How Lowering Your Salt Intake Could Be a Game-Changer for Heart Health
Doctors explain how cutting your salt intake could change everything when it comes to heart health—and how much you should really aim to have each day.
There are some habits that are so second nature that we do them without even thinking about them. For some people, it’s walking directly to their coffee maker as soon as they wake up to pour a cup of joe. For someone else, it may be turning off all the lights before leaving the house.
There’s one habit in particular that many do at mealtime without even thinking about it, and it’s one that could literally take years off your life: reaching for the salt shaker. According to a study published in the European Heart Journal, people who consistently add extra salt to their meals have a 28 percent higher risk of premature death than those who rarely add salt to their food. Additionally, researchers found that by age 50, consistently adding salt to meals can cut two years off of one’s life for men and one year off for women.
Why can salt have this effect and how do you cut back without being stuck with flavorless meals? Here’s what cardiologists want you to know.
Related: Your Live-Well Guide to Maintaining Heart Health and Preventing Heart Disease
How Salt Can Negatively Impact the Heart
Dr. Sean Heffron, MD, a preventive cardiologist at NYU Langone Health, explains that the primary reason why excessive salt is bad for heart health is that it can raise blood pressure. “High blood pressure has a lot of chronic impacts on cardiovascular health,” he says. Dr. Heffron explains that consuming a lot of salt leads to an excess of sodium in the blood. This has an impact on the tension of the muscles around the blood vessels, which then raises blood pressure.
“To put it simply, this all goes back to what our high school chemistry teachers taught us about osmosis,” says Dr. Jennifer Chao, MD, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Health. “Salt is sodium which attracts water through osmosis. The water will follow salt, so the more salt there is, the more capable your body is to hold onto water which will then lead to higher blood pressure.”
Dr. Chao explains that higher blood pressure means that the heart is working harder to pump blood out of the heart to critical organs. “Over time, if your heart keeps working very hard, it can tire out and weaken, leading to heart failure,” she says. In addition to raising blood pressure, Dr. Chao says that excessive salt is also linked to causing inflammation, which can increase the risk of many health conditions, such as strokes or cancer.
Related: What is HCM? Shining a Light on the Most Common Inherited Heart Disease
But how much is too much? According to the American Heart Association, people should cap their sodium intake at 2,300 milligrams a day, which is one teaspoon. In other words, not very much! If you’re used to adding salt to everything you eat, you may think capping it to a teaspoon a day means living a life of flavorless food. But both doctors promise that this isn’t the case.
How To Cut Back on Salt Without Compromising Taste
Dr. Heffron says that the first step toward consuming too much salt is pinpointing where it's coming from in your diet. Do you eat out frequently or tend to eat many overly processed foods, such as microwavable meals? Do you use plenty of condiments or sauces? Often, he says, these foods are made with a lot of salt. Dr. Chao agrees. “It’s surprising to read the nutritional labels of frozen foods and realize there’s 50 percent of your daily value in just one serving, and often there are two or more servings in each package, so you’ll be getting more than your necessary daily need for sodium in just one meal,” she says.
If you primarily make your own meals at home, pay attention to how much salt you add when you’re cooking. At mealtime, instead of automatically reaching for the salt shaker, try your food first. Maybe it already tastes great without adding anything at all!
Both doctors also recommend flavoring food with other herbs, such as garlic or dried onion powder. They say that, unlike salt, many herbs are actually beneficial for heart health and linked to lowering blood pressure. The American Heart Association recommends experimenting with basil, curry powder, cumin, rosemary, paprika and thyme—all of which are both beneficial for health and packed with flavor.
Even if you don’t have a family history of high blood pressure or other cardiovascular problems, Dr. Heffron says it’s still a smart idea to monitor your salt intake. “High blood pressure is one of the most common health problems that affects people in their 70s and 80s. The habits we develop when we’re younger stay with us, so the earlier you start developing healthy habits, the better off you’ll be,” he says. If you want to age healthfully, this is advice to take to heart!
Next up, see the seven lifestyle habits that can keep your heart healthy.
Sources
Dr. Sean Heffron, MD, a preventive cardiologist at NYU Langone Health
Dr. Jennifer Chao, MD, cardiologist at NYU Langone Health
