Salt vs Sugar: Which is More Harmful to the Human Body?

[ISamson]

During these days, I have asked my mother: What is better/worse for the human body: salt or sugar? Both of these substances are quite dangerous in high amounts, but which one is worse?

Salt was used in food preservation, with its abilities (Which abilities? I have never understood this...) and it was used in dentistry to cure decay (??).
However, which one is better/more harmful to the human body either dissolved, or raw?

Is my question clear?
Thanks.

 

[BvU]

Immediate danger from salt is worse than from sugar. Long-term both are killers -- hard to appoint a winner: how would you run such a contest ? A teaspoon of each per day ?

 

[ISamson]

how would you run such a contest ? A teaspoon of each per day ?

Yeah, theoretically.
About a teaspoon per day, yes. Sounds like a good amount.

 

[BvU]

That case salt wins.

 

[ISamson]

That case salt wins.

So salt wins the 'most deadly of the two'!

 

[BvU]

I'd say yes. Main reason is we need only small amounts of NaCl and sugar is our natural energy carrier with much higher levels and much higher turnover. But diabetes from too much is very ugly.

Maybe 'teaspoon of each per day' isn't really a level playing ground for such a contest...

@jim mcnamara ?

 

[ISamson]

@jim mcnamara ?

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Epidemiological studies would seem to agree with the answer of salt, though it is hard to directly compare the numbers due to differences in methodology, and what the studies are looking at in particular, but the differences are large enough that it wouldn't change the result so much:

"The study concludes that about 1.65 million deaths [worldwide] from cardiovascular disease each year can be attributed to sodium consumption."
vs
"By contributing to obesity and, through that, to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks appears to claim the lives of about 25,000 American adults yearly and is linked worldwide to the deaths of 180,000 each year, new research says."

 

[jim mcnamara]

Over consumption!

One caveat - the useful links above are about over consumption of nutrients. Like the amount of simple sugar in a serving of beets (9g), versus the amount in one Monster energy drink(27g). Ditto sodium. BTW Sodium and Chlorine are required nutrients in human nutrition. If you never add salt or cook with added salt, you still get > 1000mg Na per day eating non-processed foods. The current RDA for Na is 1500mg/day

So in the OP, in effect your choice of a single teaspoon of one or the other is a kind of reductio ad absurdum. It does not tell you much that is practically useful. Nothing about how your diet should be, it unhelpfully demonizes foods. This is the kind of thinking you get from pop science articles.

A decent answer to your question is: do not worry about which one is worse, do this:
Don't use/eat table sugar or anything with sugar on the list of ingredients. Ditto table salt. Voila! Some people go further and say do not eat prepared processed foods at all. Meaning if it has a list of ingredients do not eat it. A cardiologist friend of mine loves to do this with younger patients. The nutrition consultant in the gym I go to says: "If it has more than five ingredients in the list or sugar/salt appear there anywhere, never buy the food."

Or:

Rather than pose questions like this, consider going here to see what in fact you are really eating (similar pages are available for the EU and Australia):
So check the Na content of 1 oz (28.3g) of cheddar cheese for example (hint select standard reference, else you will get a huge number of hits.)

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/

Change your diet accordingly.

 

[gleem]

The current RDA for Na is 500mg/day

Where did this come from? We excrete much more than that each day. In fact recent research concluded that too little sodium is a risk for increased mortality. see .

https://www.cardiosmart.org/News-an...Salt-is-Associated-with-Increased-Heart-Risks

The American Heart Association recommends 1500 mg ( about 4 gms of salt) but no more than 2300 mg of sodium (About 6 grams of salt or 1 teaspoon) per day.

There normally is no reason for one to ever add salt to a meal with what is present naturally and or added by the manufacturer.

As far as sugar is concerned it provides nothing but calories the health risk being the the development of insulin resistance, obesity, elevated triglycerides and eventually diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@gleem you are correct. Thanks. Changed it.
I got the data from here: https://www.nap.edu/read/10925/chapter/8 , which shows 1500.

Do a ctrl/f for Yanomamo Indians(in the link above, and note Na consumption 200mg/day. FWIW. Just in case you think humans, for some reason, cannot survive on less than 1500mg. Clinicians have been debating this number, but a newer clinical discussion involves K/Na ratios.
Have read here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5537815/

 

[jim mcnamara]

There normally is no reason for one to ever add salt to a meal with what is present naturally and or added by the manufacturer.

A little reciprocity: if you are reading the label and it has salt in the ingredient list, that is the same thing as adding salt to food during cooking. Correct?
Citing nutritionists I've worked with ( who specialize in cardio care) is basically: avoid foods with added salt. Period. The end. Do you disagree?
Please cite some primary research demonstrating this. I can see providers trying to give diehard salt freaks some wiggle room, figuring 2000mg (or whatever) is better than the 5000mg/day they now consume. But I do not see anything like that in recent literature. And the book a linked to in the post above this one actually discusses the 2300 number in a major RCT on Na, blood pressure, renal measurements.

From that same nad book:

clinical trials that specifically examined the effects of at least three levels of sodium intake on blood pressure. The range of sodium intake in these studies varied from 0.23 g (10 mmol)/day to 34.5 g (1,500 mmol)/day. Several trials included sodium intake levels close to 1.5 g (65 mmol) and 2.3 g (100 mmol)/day.

And FWIW cardiosmart.org is not primary reference, although they simply act in passthrough mode. And speak to non-science types nicely. Papers vetted by NIH are your best bet.

Salt/Sodium is a political football. So let's please stick to primary research. I am ready to learn some new things ...

 

[gleem]

Citing nutritionists I've worked with ( who specialize in cardio care) is basically: avoid foods with added salt. Period. The end. Do you disagree?

No I don't In general avoid products with added salt. However if you do not use processed/prepared/canned food you may need to add salt. Most unprocessed food like fresh veggies/fruits, meats contain sodium but not necessarily in amounts the body may need. Clearly if you are hypertensive you should reduce your salt intake. To what level? You still need sodium.

This paper has caused the problem. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30467-6/abstract The medical establishment and the salt industry are critical of its conclusion but for the opposite reasons.

 

[Laroxe]

I think the evidence that salt is bad for us is overstated and principally based on its possible effects on blood pressure. We need salt and like most things in physiology it's effects are often really down to the sodium / potassium ratio, we have lots of mechanisms that keep our electrolyte levels within tight boundaries, the effects of a high intake are generally very short lived. One of these effects is to retain water and its this which is thought to effect Blood Pressure, however in normo-tensive people, this effect seems very small (@ 3-4mm hg ). The effect of salt on BP appears only to be seen in a proportion of people ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1987013) and there is some debate whether this effect on BP translates into increased cardiovascular risk (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21731062) & (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25519688). The Mediterranean Diet was based on the lifespan of the people in southern Europe, at the time there were two other contenders with equally long lifespans, one was Japan but this was rejected because it typically was high salt and so didn't fit with these ideas. Science in action eh!. There is clearly no standard requirement for salt, our needs vary hugely depending on all sorts of things, the fact that they have set a recommended level says a great deal about their thinking.

There are other risks associated with salt but the evidence is even less convincing, but there are also a number of suggested harms linked to a low salt diet, but we will leave them.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Sugar is more likely to kill men of my genotype (diabetes).

 

[symbolipoint]

Both dangerous if intake of excessive quantities according to biological needs. Sugar is fuel. Salt is not.

 

[OmCheeto]

Both dangerous if intake of excessive quantities according to biological needs. Sugar is fuel. Salt is not.

And don't forget how dangerous water is.

Strange but True: Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill

 

[gleem]

The OP brought up the danger of consuming too much sugar, but IMO a food that is at least equal if not more of a problem is refined grain flours used to make such goodies as bread, cookies, biscuits, pasta etc. They are digested and absorbed fast like sugar and produce a spike in the release of insulin and leave you craving for more. And they are consumed in greater quantities than sugar (provided you do not drink too much soda). Also these products like sugar do not provide much fiber and may affect the diversity of gut flora resulting in digestive problems and their sequelae.

 

[symbolipoint]

The OP brought up the danger of consuming too much sugar, but IMO a food that is at least equal if not more of a problem is refined grain flours used to make such goodies as bread, cookies, biscuits, pasta etc. They are digested and absorbed fast like sugar and produce a spike in the release of insulin and leave you craving for more. And they are consumed in greater quantities than sugar (provided you do not drink too much soda). Also these products like sugar do not provide much fiber and may affect the diversity of gut flora resulting in digestive problems and their sequelae.

I remember news and documentary broadcast reporting the benefits of complex carbohydrates, especially for runner and other types of athletes, ... something about longer lasting energy and 'glycogen'... Complex carbohydrates come from grains, flours, but how refined these things are, like pasta and breads, I do not know.

 

[gleem]

I remember news and documentary broadcast reporting the benefits of complex carbohydrates, especially for runner and other types of athletes, ... something about longer lasting energy and 'glycogen'... Complex carbohydrates come from grains, flours, but how refined these things are, like pasta and breads, I do not know.

The idea of complex carbs is that its digestions suppose to take longer slowing down the production of blood glucose levels obviating the need for the production of large amount of insulin to metabolize it. Refined flour's carbs are not complex enough and like sugar produce a large load of glucose quickly spiking insuln levels. For athletes this is ok because they will need and will use the energy stored in the liver as glycogen. If the glycogen is not use fast enough then it is converted to fat.. For the ordinary individual the constant overload of glycogen not being used by the muscles leads to the accumulation of fat.. I believe that if this situation is continued for a long time produces what is know as insulin resistance where more insulin does not lower the blood glucose levels leading to diabetes.

Refined grain flour uses only the most internal part of the seed which is its main source of energy for the seed and is primarily carbs. The vitamins and minerals are mainly in the bran (husk) and the germ (embryo) which are discarded. This was done to improve shelf life. And this is why flour is fortified. In the early part of the twentieth century people where dying of pellagra particularly in poor areas where the diet depended mainly on cheap white flour.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@gleem @symbolipoint - the best search term here is probably 'glycemic index' of foods - in terms of food impact on blood glucose levels. When you eat real foods in a meal the actual glycemic impact is affected by the fact that the index is calculated for a single item: ex. cheddar cheese. Interactions with other foods in the meal and anti-nutrients will alter the actual effect.

 

[gleem]

@gleem @symbolipoint - the best search term here is probably 'glycemic index' of foods - in terms of food impact on blood glucose levels. When you eat real foods in a meal the actual glycemic impact is affected by the fact that the index is calculated for a single item: ex. cheddar cheese. Interactions with other foods in the meal and anti-nutrients will alter the actual effect.

Glycemic index is a measure of how an amount of a carb (50gm) in a food product raises the blood glucose level comapared to an equal amount of glucose. But if a food contain a relatively small number of carbs then even though those carbs might enter the blood sooner the amount may be small.

For example carrot carbs have a relatively high GI but have a low percentage of carbs in fact you need about 1.5 lbs of carrots to get 50 gms of carrot carbs used to determine the GI. So one shouldn't reject carrots bases on the GI. Carrots are a great source of fiber and other beneficial substances and nutrients.

The case against refined flour products is that they have a high GI and are carb dense, have fewer nutrients and our diet is composed of 50% to 60% of such foods.