Adding salt to food at table can cut years off your life, study finds

A study of 500,000 middle-aged Britons found that adding salt to meals was linked to earlier deaths.

Life expectancy for men and women is reduced by more than two years when salt is added to food. During the cooking process, seasoning is not included.

The team behind the work said the evidence was compelling enough that people should avoid seasoning their meals.

The leader of the study said that it was the first to assess the relation between adding salt to food and early death. 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.

More than half a million people took part in the UK Biobank study and were followed for nine years. They were asked if they added salt to their food and how often they did so when they joined the study.

Salt intake is difficult to track because many processed foods contain high levels of salt and direct measurement by urine tests is not always indicative of overall intake. Most of the western population's sodium intake comes from processed and prepared foods. Adding salt to food is a good indicator of a person's preference for salty food.

Those who always seasoned their food had a higher risk of dying early. The life expectancy for men and women who always added salt was shorter at 50.

Other factors that could affect outcomes include age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, body mass index, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, diet and medical conditions.

A senior researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, who was not involved with the research, said that there is an optimal level of salt, meaning it cannot be removed. It's difficult to find the "sweet spot" in terms of health for a person.

She said that the evidence shows that healthy people don't need to worry about their salt intake.

A diet rich in fruit and vegetables should be prioritized for this group. Those at high risk of heart disease should probably reduce their activity. Adding salt to already prepared foods is not one of the ways to achieve this.