If I cut down on salt, will it help me to lose weight?

Yes. The average British diet contains far too much salt – about 9g a day. Many people are having much more than this, and you only need 2g a day. Women who get a bit waterlogged could lose two or three pounds of unwanted fluid by reducing salt intake. This can help to prevent premenstrual bloating too.

But that’s not the main reason to cut down on salt. If the nation were to reduce its salt intake by just one-third to an average 6g a day, it would prevent more deaths from strokes and heart attacks than all the drugs we’re prescribing for high blood pressure.

If you want to lower your blood pressure, one of the first things to do is reduce salt intake. And it’s not just about your blood pressure now. Generally, blood pressure goes up with age. But this age-related rise in blood pressure doesn’t occur in groups of people who eat very low-salt diets.

My patients often say to me: ‘I don’t have salt!’. Even if you don’t add any salt in the kitchen or at the table, you may still be on a very high-salt diet. 75% of the salt people eat is already in the food before it’s taken home. Some foods (such as bacon) are obviously salty; others (such as bread and some breakfast cereals) don’t seem salty but still contain a lot of salt.

When nutritional information states the quantity of sodium in a food, you need to multiply that figure by 2.5 to get the salt (sodium chloride) content. In addition to using plenty of unprocessed foods (such as fresh vegetables and fruit), try to buy products such as muesli or canned pulses with no added salt.

If you change to a low-salt diet overnight, food may taste bland at first, but your palate soon adjusts. You can avoid protests from your family by cutting down gradually. When salt seems essential, use a little Solo or LoSalt; these contain a high proportion of potassium chloride. More potassium and less sodium means lower blood pressure. (Speak to your doctor before adding potassium to your food if you have kidney problems or take tablets for high blood pressure.)

In addition to its effect on blood pressure, a high salt intake has been linked with osteoporosis (brittle bones), asthma and stomach cancer.

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