Eating too much salt can have both short-term and long-term effects on your health. Here are some of the things that can happen if you eat too much salt:
Short-term effects:
- Bloating: Eating too much salt can cause your body to retain water, leading to bloating and swelling, especially around the abdomen and eyes.
- Thirst: Salt can make you very thirsty, which might encourage you to drink more water. This can lead to more trips to the bathroom.
- Disturbed sleep: Eating too much salt before bed can lead to disturbances in your sleep, ranging from restless sleep to waking up often at night to not feeling rested in the morning.
- Weakness: When there’s too much salt in your blood, water gushes out of your cells to thin out the salt. This can make you feel weaker than usual.
- Nausea, diarrhea, and upset stomach: If too much salt in your diet makes you dehydrated, you might feel nauseated, have diarrhea, or have cramps.
Long-term effects:
- High blood pressure: Eating too much salt in the long term may raise your blood pressure, which can increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.
- Enlarged heart muscle: Eating too much salt may raise your chances of having an enlarged heart muscle.
- Headaches: Eating too much salt may increase your chances of having headaches.
- Kidney disease: Eating too much salt can negatively affect your kidney function.
- Stomach cancer: Eating too much salt in the long term may increase your risk of stomach cancer.
- Osteoporosis: Eating too much salt can cause calcium losses, some of which may be pulled from bone, leading to the bone-thinning disease known as osteoporosis.
Its important to note that everyone is different, and some people may be more sensitive to the effects of salt than others. Its recommended that adults consume no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, which is about one teaspoon of salt.