How important is salt in the diet?

So salt is extremely important in people with high blood pressure. So if you have high blood pressure salt will make it very hard for medications, or other lifestyle measures to get the blood pressure down.

The other people who need to worry about salt in their diet are those with heart failure, who might have swollen ankles or be breathless. And again high salt in the diet will make those symptoms much more difficult to control.

Professor David Celermajer is Scandrett Professor of Cardiology and Head of Cardiology at the University of Sydney.