The human body obtains salt through food, usually from the following three sources: first, the natural salt content in food; The second is the salt added during food processing; The third is the salt added when cooking or eating.
Generally, healthy adults in China need to take about 15-20g of salt from various diets every day, which is about 5.5-7.3kg per year. Salt is absorbed by the human small intestine and enters the blood. The organ that regulates the salt content in human body is the kidney, and adrenocortical hormone controls the reabsorption of sodium ions and chloride ions. There are about 2 million sweat glands in human body, and the sweat secreted by sweat glands contains 0.35%-0.7% salt. If you can't replenish salt in time because of sweating a lot, you will have symptoms of heat spasm.
The epidemiological survey of salt and hypertension in various countries found that the blood pressure in residential areas with per capita daily salt below 3 grams was lower. When some of them moved to areas where the daily salt content was about 8 grams, their salt content increased and their blood pressure increased significantly. In the salt areas of Japan, with the consumption of about 20 grams of salt per person per day, the prevalence of hypertension and cerebrovascular diseases has increased significantly. China has the habit of "sweet in the south and salty in the north", with more salt in the north and more patients with hypertension.
One of the main measures to prevent hypertension is to limit salt intake. Patients with hypertension are often not sensitive to salty taste. Some people think it is too salty to eat, but they think it tastes just right, so they unconsciously eat more salt than others. There are many areas in China where salt is used to preserve food, such as pickles, salted fish, bacon and salted eggs. If you eat a lot of these pickled products, you will also eat a lot of sodium salt.
In order to properly limit the intake of sodium salt and make people eat delicious nutritious meals, we should improve the dietary structure and increase the variety of non-staple foods. At the same time, salt and soy sauce should be used as little as possible when cooking, and seasonings such as sugar, vinegar, onion, ginger, garlic and pepper can be used for reasonable and scientific collocation, and more importantly, the habit of light diet should be developed.
Former US President Ronald Reagan paid special attention to less salt, less fat and less sugar in his diet, and he developed the habit of basically not eating salt. This is a habit he formed during his one-week tenure as governor of California. He knows the benefits of eating as little salt as possible and has always adhered to it.
The amount of salt in infants and young children is extremely harmful to health because the kidneys are immature and lack the ability to excrete excess sodium in the blood. Therefore, infants need to reduce their salt intake appropriately. According to the recommendation of American nutritionists, infants aged 0-6 months need 1 15-350 mg of salt every day, infants aged 6- 12 months need 250-720 mg every day, and infants aged 1-3 years need 325-975 mg every day.
How much is appropriate to eat? Due to the differences in living habits, the per capita salt intake of countries around the world is not the same. The daily intake of salt in the United States is about 5g, in Germany it is 5-8g, in Japan it is below10g and in China it is around15g.
The opinions of countries around the world are still not quite consistent. The United States is a country that actively advocates low salt. According to the American Nutrition Society, it is enough for adults to consume 1. 1-3.3 grams of salt every day, that is, three meals a day, and each meal is about 1 gram of salt.
Therefore, according to these conditions, China medical experts suggested that the salt intake of China residents should not exceed 7 grams per person per day in the south and 10 grams per person per day in the north. This suggestion not only has scientific basis, is beneficial to people's health, but also takes care of the eating habits of our people and should be strongly advocated.
Of course, it may be more ideal if each person can control it within 5 grams per day. However, there is still a certain distance from the eating habits and acceptance of Chinese people.