so...ummmmmm....what's so wrong with salt?

[OverMyDeadBody]

I'm genuinely interested, why is it so bad for us?

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yeah but is that true? are there studies?

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Blood pressure

Linkied with clogging of arteries - therefore heart attacks (I think)

No am very lazy and thought the all wise all knowledgable mumsnetters would be a quicker solution

will google now though

High blood pressure is the main one.

For children it puts undue stress on teir developing kidneys

Lots of studies, but it's about the volume of salt, not that salt is bad per se. A bit of salt is quite good for you. Too much can actually poison you through kidney failure (there are some very sad stories about babies who have died through being fed salty food). Mostly it's just raised blood pressure, leading to strokes and other heart disease issues.

Googling brought up way to much crap stuff to trawl through, but I found this in wiki which explains it:

'This is due to the fact that increasing amounts of salt in a person's bloodstream causes the body to draw more water, increasing the pressure on the blood vessel walls.'

Makes more sense to me now!

Oh yeah, I knew about putting extra pressure on children's kidneys.

Thanks everyone, I already knew lots about the dangers of too little salt (being highly active in hot climates) but realised I didn't understant so much about too much being bad. I like to understand 'why' in life!