Sea salt no healthier than table salt

Sea salt, which can be 19 times as expensive as its humbler cousin table salt, is no healthier because both kinds are overwhelmingly sodium chloride and is just a costlier way to damage your health, say researchers.

Kay Dilley, nutritionist at Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), said: "Sea salt costs up to 19 times more than table salt. For the 55 percent of you who buy sea salt, it might be worth switching to table salt to cut your grocery bills."

Sea salt, routinely endorsed by celebrity chefs because of its "natural and mineral content", is a more costly way of damaging your health, says a study commissioned by CASH, reported the Daily Mail.

Graham MacGregor, professor at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and chairman of CASH, said: "It is disgraceful that chefs still encourage people to use so much sea and rock salt.

"This has the added danger that, as the crystal sizes are much larger and don't taste as salty, more salt is consumed.

"Reducing salt intake by just one gram per day is predicted to prevent more than 6,000 deaths from strokes and heart attacks a year," added MacGregor.

The CASH study analysed seven salt products available from supermarkets and online, a selection of rock and sea salts and table salt.

The sodium chloride content of 'posh' salts - such as Maldon and Himalayan (Best Care Products) - and table salt (Saxa) were measured by a public analyst. Results show they all contain just as much sodium chloride as each other, and were just as damaging to health.

Too much salt can raise blood pressure, leading to strokes, heart failure and heart disease and are also linked to osteoporosis, stomach cancer and kidney disease.

Almost a third of 1,358 people polled by consumer watchdog Which? think that sea salt is healthier than table salt.