Adding salt to food at table can cut years off your life, study finds | Hacker News Reader

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

theguardian.com

17 pointsyamrzou20 comments

From the article: "The study did not definitively rule out other factors, such as salt consumption being a proxy for a generally less healthy lifestyle,". In the list of things that they corrected for neither education or income were included. Education is correlated with income and probably with reduced salt intake. Income is roughly anti-correlated with stress. So, my guess is that this result wouldn't hold up with a few more pertinent corrections applied.

Yup. Back when I was smoking cigarettes I used to pour salt on anything - and funnily enough a huge percentage of smokers does the same, no idea why.

In case that wasn’t rhetorical, AFAIK smoking is known to dull one’s sense of taste. I would imagine smokers to be less picky eaters and drinkers for this reason as well.

It surely is, but I believe it has less to do with sense of taste. There's a very weird, intangible correlation between smoking (and afaik, drinking) and favouring salty food. Not as in, a little bit saltier just to taste it, but actually salty. There's a few studies around with inconclusive results but they usually always reach the conclusion that salt/sodium intake is dramatically higher in smokers and/or drinkers, but no further conclusions as to which other factors come into play besides nicotine reducing the ion current mediated by the epithelial sodium channel. Although, admittedly, I didn't look further since because I stopped smoking anyway.

I feel like almost anyone else on here could say this, but correlation is not causation, especially in these large observational studies. Abstaining from salt in your diet is unusual and likely accompanies other factors that could impact your longevity.

From the article:

> This does not include seasoning during the cooking process.

It just means to not add a salt shaker on the table, not "abstaining from salt in your diet".

The original commenters point still stands though right?

Also isn't addition of salt often a sign the chef/cook messed up and under-salted a dish?

>The original commenters point still stands though right?

Yes!

> Also isn't addition of salt often a sign the chef/cook messed up and under-salted a dish?

Being a question of taste, literally, it is a subjective question. IMO you should respect the choice of the chef/cook, and if we are only talking of the "messed up" dishes, then I hope the cook dont mess up that often that is justify to add a salt shaker on the table.

On the other side you have people that add salt to every dish, and this before tasting it, those one are on the dark side!

It's very mysterious how the chemical properties of the table salt shaker differs from the seasoning.

It's rather the amount and perception of amount added. Usually in recipes while cooking, the amount is more controlled and distributed throughout the dish. Adding further salt adds more uncontrolled variability to the sodium intake in ones' diet

I think there is more than the amount. Salt is a taste enhancer when you cook with it, added to the table it just add a salty taste to your plate.

As is usual for science reporting, the actual study's claims are much more modest than the news headline suggests, and indeed only claim a correlation: "Our findings indicate that higher frequency of adding salt to foods is associated with a higher hazard of all-cause premature mortality and lower life expectancy."

https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article/doi/10.10...

I'll leave the discussion about correlation vs causation to others, I'm just here to add that the new German health minister Karl Lauterbach somewhat infamously fully abstains from added salt in his food to the point of having extra stuff prepared for him at gatherings.

https://www-deutschlandfunknova-de.translate.goog/beitrag/sa...

He's a bit like a Richard Stallman for salt.

Well, this must be why people have such tragically short lifespans in South Korea. (Sarcasm off, life expectancy in SK is 83.2 vs 78.8 in the US, and their average salt intake is over 2X the WHO-recommended levels).

I always find it strange that people add salt to their meal before when tasting it - almost as if it is a habit rather than a way to enhance flavour.

I know but salt is so tasty :/

Especially salted meat or French fries.

That's why we add salt before we cook.

What about MSG?

A naturopath friend of mine prescribes MSG to patients. Not sure for what though.

AFAIK it's better to use a mix of salt + MSG than just straight salt, since the umami / savoury flavour boost from the MSG reduces the need for additional salt. Same perceived saltiness, but less sodium.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com