I really don't think high amounts of salt is a big deal, unless you almost never eat foods with potassium, too. But even then high levels of salt is probably a

I really don't think high amounts of salt is a big deal, unless you almost never eat foods with potassium, too. But even then high levels of salt is probably a bigger issue for people who already have border-line high blood pressure due to atherosclerosis, and then eating a lot of salt pushes them over the limit. It's also much easier for doctors to say "eat less salt" than to say "eat more potassium-rich foods", even if they know that the two need to be in balanced. When doing a 5-day fasting recently I purposefully tried to consume significant amounts of salt because I felt like I was lacking in electrolytes. I could barely maintain my blood pressure around 10.5/6. Normally, it's around 11.5-12/7. This is a nice video discussing some studies that show that high levels of salt is significantly better if it comes with high levels of potassium compared to low levels of salt but even lower levels of potassium (by ratio): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amJ-ev8Ial8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amJ-ev8Ial8