Table Salt in Your Food Could Increase Risk of Cancer by 41%

... Are you always sprinkling a bit more salt onto your food after it hits your table? A new study suggests that's putting you at a greater risk of developing gastric cancer.

The research, published in the journal Gastric Cancer, looked into the eating habits of more than 471,000 U.K. Biobank participants with no existing cancer or kidney issues and found that those who said they "always added salt to food at table" had a 41% greater risk of getting stomach cancer than those who never or rarely did.

The results were identified after an 11-year median follow-up period with the participants in which researchers recorded 640 cancer cases,

But the researchers note individuals who add more salt to their foods are also more likely to already be eating foods with higher sodium levels. That means the true association between salt intake and gastric cancer risk could be higher because the study's data didn't include participants' complete dietary sodium intake.

Stomach cancer is the fifth-most-common cancer worldwide, though the National Cancer Institute says it's more common in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. ...

@#6 ... A teaspoon is ALOT of salt. ...

Yep.

How Much Sodium Should You Eat in a Day?
www.health.com

... Sodium is a mineral that occurs naturally in some foods and is added to most processed foods. It's also a component of salt, which is technically called sodium chloride because it's made up of 40% sodium and 60% chloride.

To put that into perspective, one teaspoon of salt contains about 2,300 milligrams of sodium. That's precisely a whole day's worth of sodium, per United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines. (The guidelines call for 1,500 milligrams daily for people with hypertension, aka high blood pressure).1 ...

@#7 ... While our study based on a large cohort suggests that always adding salt to food at table is also associated with a higher risk of gastric cancer in Western populations, it has several limitations. ...

Yup.

As a preliminary study, there are many unanswered questions, as noted by those who conducted the study.

Isn't it A Good Thing that they so openly admit the shortcomings of their study?)

On the whole, though, doesn't the study seem to confirm what has been known about excessive salt in our diets?

@#15 ... They're British. They start off with a crap-filled diet. Adding salt probably doesn't do anything....

Salt seems to be a staple of the American diet.

What Pro Cooks Know About Salt and Flavor (2020)
www.thekitchn.com

... Have you ever looked at a recipe and wondered just how much "salt to taste" really meant?

Have you watched TV chefs toss handfuls of salt into a pot with fascination? ....

Yeah, that TV chefs aspect rings true for me.

Adding more and more salt for flavor.

Have we become addicted to the flavor of salt?

The Hard Sell on Salt (2010)
www.nytimes.com

... With salt under attack for its ill effects on the nation's health, the food giant Cargill kicked off a campaign last November to spread its own message.

"Salt is a pretty amazing compound," Alton Brown, a Food Network star, gushes in a Cargill video called Salt 101. "So make sure you have plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times."

The campaign by Cargill, which both produces and uses salt, promotes salt as "life enhancing" and suggests sprinkling it on foods as varied as chocolate cookies, fresh fruit, ice cream and even coffee. "You might be surprised," Mr. Brown says, "by what foods are enhanced by its briny kiss." ...

I remember seeing an episode of Mr Alton's show where he actually hosted reps from the salt industry.

Wow.