High sodium intake is not bad for you (unless you have a few very specific and unusual health conditions.) Like most late 20th century nutritional guidance, turns out that idea was totally wrong.
Hence my previous comment you're 'replying' to: It's only arguing about how much sodium becomes really bad, which is at best peripheral to the what was discussed. What's your point?
> Do we actually _need_ all the extra salt we’re consuming nowadays? Is it good/neutral/bad for us?
Of course we don't need it, and too much salt is indeed bad for us [1] [2] (hence all the campaigns about eating less salty).
According to the references I've quickly found, for instance, an American consumes on average 3,400mg of sodium per day when the body needs less than 500mg (obviously this may be higher if you sweat a lot for some reason).
There is actually little evidence that sodium is bad for you, and the advice to avoid it comes from people like the AHA who are basically just trying to sell you breakfast cereal.
In non-technical language: We've been led to believe that a low sodium diet is optimal for cardio-vascular health, but the data don't support that. Furthermore, it is safer to err on the side of too much salt than too little.
There are plenty of other studies showing a strong correlation between sodium and stroke risk and this study focused on overall CVD risk, so it's still a good idea to avoid high sodium intake.
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