Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Salt is also an opportunistic carrier for iodine supplementation. So to call it good or bad, you'd need to either come up with an epidemiological study of the two diseases relative to each other, or maybe propose an alternative carrier for the iodine supplementation.
> Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure.
The evidence for this is poor, and there is some evidence to the contrary.[0] Right now it is difficult to assert that there's anything more than a correlation, possibly because many popular high salt food choices could be bad for reasons other than sodium (e.g. fast food staples). In recent decades, widespread success of anti-salt messaging means that lower salt intake is now highly correlated with eating a healthy diet.
There's no first-order harm in a low salt diet, but there may be some second-order concerns. For example, when food manufacturers are pushed to reduce salt, their arsenal for achieving hyperpalatability becomes narrowed to objectively worse things like sugar and refined seed oils.
--
[0] "The field of heart failure has evolved [...] There is now substantial randomized trial data to indicate that dietary sodium restriction does not provide the reduction in clinical events with accepted heterogeneity in the clinical trial results."https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ (2024)
That study is focused on how much to restrict sodium intake in patients who have already experienced heart failure to avoid further clinical events (more heart attacks). The evidence for excess sodium intake causing cardiovascular problems (by way of either high blood pressure or tissue damage from sodium spikes) remains pretty robust. See for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/.
I think the closest thing to what you're saying that has been found is that very low sodium levels in the diet also lead to problems (the body is starved of electrolytes).
Sure. That makes sense physiologically, if you think about membrane potential and hormonal control and kidney capacity. Just like with glucose, it's the spikes that cause the damage. But it's a lot easier to explain to a non-professional that eating overly salty food is bad for them (which is what the advice reduces to in practice) than try to explain osmolality to them.
Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Salt is also an opportunistic carrier for iodine supplementation. So to call it good or bad, you'd need to either come up with an epidemiological study of the two diseases relative to each other, or maybe propose an alternative carrier for the iodine supplementation.