Many people are trying to reduce their salt consumption in an effort to reduce elevated blood pressure, or because they think that too much salt consumption is bad in some way for them. A new study shows that the body is pretty good at regulating its salt intake, and efforts to reduce the level of salt in foods (think restaurant foods which often are heavily salted) will not work since the body will seek extra salt elsewhere.
The study documents in humans what neuroscientists have reported for some time: animals’ sodium (salt) intake is controlled by networks in the brain and not by the salt in one’s food. The findings have important implications for future U.S. nutrition policy directed at sodium intake.

Findings from the new study, entitled “Normal Range of Human Dietary Sodium Intake: A Perspective Based on 24-hour Urinary Sodium Excretion Worldwide,” is published online in advance of the print edition of the American Journal of Hypertension.