[skohan]

I don't think sodium accumulates in the body - Na+ and Cl- are both ions which are relevant to a wide variety of cellular processes, and as far as I know your body has a lot of tools for maintaining the balance of electrolytes in the body.

As far as I understand, the health risk associated with excess sodium intake is high blood pressure, i.e. more stress on your cardiovascular system.

[hnick]

Kidneys too, last time I looked. Apparently it's kind of a feedback loop where salt makes them work poorly which leads to high pressure which leads to damage and repeat. Some details here:

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/kidneys-salt-and-blood-pr...

[jnellis]

As I understand it's related in that salt dissolves in water easily and somehow causes your body to retain water. This in turn increases the water in your blood (plasma I guess), thus the pressure increases. A 'water pill' (hydrochlorothiazide) is often prescribed along with blood pressure reducing medicine to make you urinate and remove water from your system. While my salt intake is normal, it wasn't until I was prescribed a water pill in conjunction with my blood pressure pill that I was able to see better results and also able to take less of the blood pressure med.

[skohan]

I mean that is just basic chemistry. Basically your body wants to have a certain concentration of ions in your bodily fluid, so if you put more sodium in, your body needs to hold on to more water to dilute it until you're able to pee it out