Love adding more salt to your food at the table? Be cautious, as a study has warned that this practice could increase the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). The risk is particularly notable in individuals with a higher estimated glomerular filtration rate—an indicator of kidney function—and a lower body mass index or level of physical activity.
The research, encompassing 465,288 participants, revealed that a higher self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods—a common eating behaviour shaped by a person’s long-term preference for salty taste in foods and habitual salt intake—was significantly associated with an increased risk of CKD.
In the paper published in JAMA Network, the team found that individuals who added salt to their foods were also more likely than those who did not add salt to their foods to be current smokers and have diabetes or cardiovascular disease (CVD) at baseline.
Reducing Salt for Lower CKD Risk:
“The findings suggest that reducing the frequency of adding salt to foods at the table might be a valuable strategy to lower CKD risk in the general population,” said Rui Tang, from the Department of Epidemiology at Tulane University in the US.
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Previous studies have shown that a greater self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, premature mortality, and type 2 diabetes.
The recent study observed that the positive connections between the self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods and the risk of CKD seemed to diminish with a higher BMI.
The team also noted that the link between sodium intake and CKD was reduced in participants with regular physical activity compared to those who were less physically active. This suggests that optimal physical activity might mitigate the adverse association of a high preference for salt with CKD.
This discovery is corroborated by earlier studies that indicated an association between increased physical activity and improved outcomes in CKD, according to the researchers.
