High sodium diets are "associated with chronic degenerative diseases including renal diseases" "in a hypertension-independent manner". They are associated, among many other ailments, with strokes, cancer and heart failure.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32738302/

Thanks for the input. Not sure to what extent the links support the assertion > "associated with chronic degenerative diseases including renal diseases" "in a hypertension-independent manner"

> https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s... Excess levels of sodium/salt *may* put you at risk for: Excess levels of sodium/salt *may* cause increased water retention that leads to: (my emphasis)

> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32738302/ "Some studies have shown that HSD has a positive correlation with albuminuria, an important risk factor for the development and progression of kidney disease in a hypertension-independent manner "

A correlation with a risk factor .It asserts "is associated with chronic degenerative diseases including renal diseases" with no citation. The paper itself is about feeding a high-salt diet to mice.

I'll see your citations, and raise you:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351135/ Sodium intake, life expectancy, and all-cause mortality

"Our observation of sodium intake correlating positively with life expectancy and inversely with all-cause mortality worldwide and in high-income countries argues against dietary sodium intake being a culprit of curtailing life span or a risk factor for premature death. These data are observational and should not be used as a base for nutritional interventions".

> I'll see your citations, and raise you:

> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351135/ Sodium intake, life expectancy, and all-cause mortality

Good overview of the poor design of that study and many others that make statements that very much go against the plurality of high quality evidence:

"While calling for a controlled trial to provide “robust evidence” to support the current global policies, Mente et al. lend their support to an “ecological analysis” of global statistics by Messerli et al. [78]. There are many inherent limitations of such analyses. Messerli et al. [78] correlate sodium and outcomes by country, not by individual. The study design is unable to remove unmeasured confounding (ecological fallacy), a well-known methodological concern that the authors acknowledge and then promptly dismiss. Many countries do not have data on sodium intake and, when available, it is often of poor quality. When comparing “high income” countries (in World Bank Income Class 1), the authors aggregate data from the USA, UK and Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, and Equatorial Guinea. The distribution of wealth in these countries and the ensuing disparities in individual health will have huge effects on life expectancy due to factors other than sodium intake, none of which are accounted for. In addition, Messerli et al. ignore the hard evidence from previous human trials. Yet, Messerli et al. claim their results “argue against dietary sodium intake being a culprit of curtailing life span or being a risk factor for premature death”.

from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13668-021-00383-z

Thanks for that, a valuable paper. Seems it's not straightforward as a lay person to get a clear answer on the state of knowledge. And it's a shame that as you try to check citations, so many of them are behind firewalls.

The second study shows that the mice were fed chow with up to 8% sodium by weight... is it fair to compare that to a Beyond Burger?

larger metastudies have found no such correlation

Maybe reduce the other 99% of sodium intake so a single Beyond Meat burger wont push you over the edge...