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Objectively define 'absurdly high'.

My suggestion of some groups already having deficiency is conjecture based on little hints here and there; more study is needed. My guesses would be: vegetarians, athletes who avoid processed food, ethnicities with a longer history of eating heavily-salted foods, some elderly, some pregnant women.

I suppose that by subjecting the entire population to an enforced low-sodium diet, and seeing who starts suffering from fatigue and early mortality, we'll find out soon enough.



I disagree. I think if anything there are more people dying because of high blood pressure and other illnesses linked through it than low-sodium issues. Besides, the fix to low-sodium, eat more salt. The fix to high blood pressure, exercise and medication.


Honest question, are we sure salt is that culpable in high blood pressure? Anyone have recent credible studies either way?


Sorry, I can't be bothered to cite a study.

But it seems to have some effect, and eating some more salt is also recommended for people with too low blood pressure.


5000-7000mg of sodium per day

or, per food product: anything that has more than 1.5x as much sodium as it does calories


> 1.5x as much sodium as it does calories

Unit mismatch? Do you assume mols of sodium?


yes, unit mismatch. calories x 1.5 mg sodium. for instance, I just had a bag of cheetos from the vending machine. 200 calories, 360 mg sodium. probably not great.


OK. I stick to SI units whenever possible. Avoids confusion.

Are cheetos a very `light' snack? I just took some "Hula Hoops" out of our vending machine and that 34g pack had almost 1000 times the number of calories you report. The "Hula Hoops" have 727 kJ / 174 kcal and 0.3g Sodium, and they also report a "salt equivalent" of 0.8g.


In the US, calories on a package are always reported as kcal, so they are approximately equal.




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