Salt and its dangerous affects

Many people do not really understand the ramifications of eating so much salt in their diet, nor do they realize how much sodium they are in fact consuming on a daily basis. A healthy adult should limit the intake to 2,300 MSG according to the Mayo Clinic and unhealthy adults such as those with heart or blood pressure problems need to consume less. Read on to see what salt does to the body and how you can prevent a heart attack.

Some may wonder why it is so important to limit the consumption of salt. Heart attacks and strokes top that list, but even before it gets that bad, people who eat too much begin to retain fluids. Two months before my heart attacks last year my best friend Chrissie noticed that I was gaining weight in only my arms and legs at a very noticeable rate. I did not derive a conclusion because I thought I was too young to worry about it. I was wrong.

The salt we eat goes into the kidneys where it is used and the extra is passed through urine. However is there is extra salt, which is too much to pass in the urine it enters the blood stream and increases the blood volume. When there is too much blood volume it makes your heart work harder. Prolonged over working your heart can lead to heart attack, stroke, or worse yet death. It also causes high blood pressure, which can do so many bad things to you. Truthfully, knowing that it could eventually kill you is it worth the extra salt on your French fries or other food.


Not only can too much salt in your body cause the heart attacks, strokes, and high blood pressure. It can also mess with your kidneys giving you kidney disease and cirrhosis! Retaining the extra sodium will make you puffy and puffy ankles make it very hard to walk some days. Your clothes do not fit properly and well its all around a very bad idea to load up on salt just enjoy food.


Limiting your salt before your doctor tells you too can reduce our risks and help you live longer. It can also prevent you from paying the almost 19,000-dollar hospital bill from last fall when I had 3 heart attacks within 4 days.
There are many benefits to reducing the salt within your diet. Some of these benefits include lower cholesterol, less chance of insulin resistance, reduced risk of having chronic liver disease, less of a risk of developing osteoporosis, some types of cancers, and it lowers your chances of becoming obese.

Even if you never salt the food, you eat at the table you may be in trouble with your intake. About five percent of the sodium intake occurs when we are cooking, only 6 percent is added at the table, and 12% comes from natural sources. A whopping 77 percent of the salt an average adult consumes comes from the processed or prepared foods we eat. Those are stats according to a graph, on the Mayo Clinic site.

You would be wise to eliminate or reduce the consumption of processed foods or foods that come all ready prepared. Get back to preparing meals from scratch, if you have a crock-pot you can prepare a meal in the morning and allow it to cook stress free all day. Prepared foods are not healthy for your wallet either as they usually cost much more.