The Salty Truth: Debunking the Myth of Sea Salt as a Healthy Option

As a Registered Dietitian for over 15 years, I have heard many myths regarding nutrition.  One that remains stubborn is the ‘sea salt is better than table salt’ claim.  I can remember years ago when I first became interested in nutrition, sitting in a community centre in a small town Ontrio gym, listening to the towns self-proclaimed ‘nutritionist’ give a talk on the health benefits of sea salt to a group of community members.  At one point he recommended adding sea salt to our drinking water to ‘better hydrate’ ourselves.  Amongst the evidence he provided included the fact that he once dove into the ocean, and immediately felt calm, therefore salt water must be therapeutic.  This talk stuck with me over the years as an example of potentially harmful misinformation.

The claim this nutritionist was making was not unlike many are still making today, that sea salt is not only better than table salt, but a health promoting ‘miracle food’.   This claim has the potential to have implications on population health, as sea salt, is still sodium chloride (salt), which is linked to a host of health concerns such as high blood pressure, renal disease, stomach cancer and stroke (Rust & Ekmekcioglu, 2017).

The scientific literature is quite incongruent with this claim and extremely sparse when it comes to any positive outcomes as a result of sea salt consumption.  Though direct feeding studies related to sea salt are minimal, one study looking at rats fed either a ‘normal diet’, a moderate amount of sea salt rich diet or a high amount of sea salt rich diet found that kidney function and healthy gut bacteria were both negatively impacted by the sea salt rich diets (Chanmuang, 2022).  Interestingly, only one other direct feeding study was found, which was also done on rats, and researchers found that though rats fed sea salt rich diets did have lower blood pressure than rats fed table salt, high sea salt rich diets led to heart abnormalities at the same rate as high table salt rich diets (Lee et al., 2016).

Though research on “sea salt” in particular is low, there is a large evidence base suggesting high salt and high sodium intake in general is linked to increased morbidity and mortality to the tune of 5 million deaths per year directly linked to salt intake, leading researchers and health experts to be vocal in their calls for reduction of salt in general (Hunter, Dhaun,& Bailey, 2022). This lack of evidence to support any health benefits of sea salt should be concerning to health experts working with high risk populations who may be susceptible to dubious nutrition claims. 

References

Chanmuang, S., Kim, B. M., Gu, S. Y., Son, Y. J., Le, H. G., Nam, Y. D., Song, E. J., Ham, K. S., & Kim, H. J. (2022). Effects of sea salt intake on metabolites, steroid hormones, and gut microbiota in rats. PloS one, 17(8), e0269014. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269014

Hunter, R. W., Dhaun, N., & Bailey, M. A. (2022). The impact of excessive salt intake on human health. Nature reviews. Nephrology, 18(5), 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-021-00533-0

Lee, B. H., Yang, A. R., Kim, M. Y., McCurdy, S., & Boisvert, W. A. (2016). Natural sea salt consumption confers protection against hypertension and kidney damage in Dahl salt-sensitive rats. Food & nutrition research, 61(1), 1264713. https://doi.org/10.1080/16546628.2017.1264713

Rust, P., & Ekmekcioglu, C. (2017). Impact of Salt Intake on the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Hypertension. Advances in experimental medicine and biology, 956, 61–84. https://doi.org/10.1007/5584_2016_147