Is sodium harmful to the body?

Sodium is one of the trace elements that our human body needs every day, and our body's demand for sodium is mainly met through table salt. Everyone should know that the main component of table salt is sodium. Taking in a certain amount of table salt every day is the basic guarantee for maintaining our body's metabolic balance. Since sodium plays such an important role in our human body, what harm does it do to our body? Let’s find out together!

Excessive sodium can cause local sodium hypernatremia, which has a significant impact on the central nervous system. The patient becomes easily agitated, restless, drowsy, has increased muscle tone, convulsions, seizures, and even coma. The constant amount of water in the body is mainly regulated by sodium. More sodium means more water, and less sodium means less water. Therefore, if you consume too much salt, edema is likely to occur, while too little salt can easily cause dehydration.

Sodium intake is mainly through food, especially salt. Almost all of the sodium consumed daily by the human body is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and transported to the kidneys through the blood. The main routes of sodium excretion are through the kidneys, skin and digestive tract. Normally the kidneys are the major organ for excretion of sodium. The kidneys regulate the amount of sodium excreted in the urine based on the body's sodium levels. The skin excretes sodium mainly through sweat. Under special circumstances, such as heavy sweating, the amount of sodium excreted through the skin increases greatly. A small amount is also excreted with feces. The amount of sodium excreted is related to the amount of sodium intake by the body. The less you intake, the less you excrete. However, when there is no sodium intake, the body can still excrete a small amount of sodium. Therefore, a long-term salt-free diet will lead to a lack of sodium in the body and abnormal sodium metabolism.

The above content introduces in great detail the harm that excessive sodium can cause to our body. Friends who have read it must have already understood this issue. Too much sodium will put a great burden on our kidneys. In severe cases, it will cause kidney dysfunction and easily cause edema. However, if we lack sodium, we will become dehydrated.