Too much salt can hurt your heart
Dietary Sodium Intake and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
No threshold effect—risk increases even at low sodium levels
Some past studies suggested very low sodium might increase heart risk (U-shaped curve), but this meta-analysis found no evidence of that—risk only goes up with more sodium.
Practical Takeaways
Check food labels and aim for less than 2,000 mg of sodium per day (WHO recommendation).
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
No threshold effect—risk increases even at low sodium levels
Some past studies suggested very low sodium might increase heart risk (U-shaped curve), but this meta-analysis found no evidence of that—risk only goes up with more sodium.
Practical Takeaways
Check food labels and aim for less than 2,000 mg of sodium per day (WHO recommendation).
Publication
Journal
Nutrients
Year
2020
Authors
Yi-Jie Wang, Tzu-Lin Yeh, M. Shih, Y. Tu, K. Chien
Related Content
Claims (6)
Eating more salt might increase your chances of heart problems as you get older — one big analysis found people who eat a lot of salt have about a 19% higher risk than those who eat less.
If you eat one more gram of salt every day, your risk of heart disease goes up by 6%, and this risk keeps rising the more salt you eat.
The more salt you eat, the higher your risk of heart disease — and this keeps going up steadily, with no safe lower limit or point where it stops getting worse.
Eating more salt is linked to a higher risk of heart disease, and this seems to be true whether scientists measure salt intake from what people remember eating or from their urine tests.
Eating more salt is linked to heart disease risk — and this link stays about the same no matter how old you are, whether you're a man or woman, how long studies look at people, or how good the studies are.