How much sodium do you actually need? A UK guide

September 7, 2026 by VYVE

UK adults are advised to have no more than 6 grams of salt a day, which is about 2.4 grams of sodium. Most people already exceed that. So for the average person, sodium is not something to add — it is something to watch. Adding electrolytes makes sense when you have lost a lot through sweat or illness, not as a general daily habit for its own sake.

That answer runs against a lot of electrolyte marketing, including some in our own category, so here is the reasoning.

The UK number

The NHS advises adults to eat no more than 6g of salt a day — roughly one level teaspoon. Children's limits are lower and scale with age: 5g from 7 to 10 years, 3g from 4 to 6, 2g from 1 to 3.

Salt and sodium are not the same thing, which is where most confusion starts. Salt is sodium chloride. Six grams of salt contains about 2.4 grams of sodium. Packs label sodium, guidance often talks about salt, and the two differ by a factor of about 2.5. If you are comparing a supplement's sodium figure against the 6g salt guideline, you are comparing the wrong numbers.

Most of it does not come from the salt cellar. The majority of UK salt intake comes from processed food — bread, sauces, cured meat, ready meals — which is why people who never salt their food can still be well over the limit.

When you genuinely need more

Sweat is the main route by which sodium leaves the body in quantity. In the largest dataset on athletes, mean sweat sodium concentration was 36.1 mmol/L — about 0.8 grams of sodium per litre — with individual concentrations ranging from roughly 0.25 to 2 grams per litre, and average losses of just under a gram of sodium per hour of exercise (Barnes and colleagues, Journal of Sports Sciences, 2019).

So an hour of hard exercise can cost you a meaningful fraction of a day's sodium, and a long session in heat can cost you more than a day's worth. That is a real deficit and worth replacing deliberately.

Illness is the other case. Vomiting and diarrhoea lose both fluid and electrolytes quickly, and oral rehydration solutions exist precisely for that — they are formulated to a specific glucose-to-sodium ratio and are the right tool, not a sports drink and not a sweet.

Heat, heavy manual work, and some medical conditions and medications also raise requirements. If a clinician has told you to increase or restrict sodium, that instruction beats anything on this page.

When you probably don't

If you work at a desk, exercise moderately, and eat a normal UK diet, you are very likely already over the salt guideline before you add anything. In that situation the argument for a high-sodium electrolyte drink is weak, and the honest thing to say is that the sodium is not the part you need.

What people in that position are often actually short of is magnesium and potassium, where UK intakes are more commonly below reference values, and where the case for a modest daily top-up is easier to make.

This is worth knowing when you compare products. A high-sodium powder built for endurance athletes can carry around 1,000 mg of sodium in a single serving. That is proportionate after two hours of running. It is close to half the daily sodium guideline for someone who has been sitting down.

Where VYVE sits, plainly

Two VYVE lollipops contain 180 mg of sodium — about 7% of the 2.4 gram daily sodium guideline, and under a fifth of what an hour of average sweating costs.

That is deliberately small. It is not an endurance product and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. The nutrients doing more of the work at that serving are magnesium at 57 mg, potassium at 300 mg, phosphorus at 119 mg, vitamin C at 120 mg and vitamin B12 at 10 micrograms — each around 15 to 17% of the daily reference value for the minerals, and well above it for the two vitamins.

If you are looking for a large sodium dose, buy a high-sodium powder. If you want a modest daily top-up that does not push your salt intake up, this is the shape of product that does that.

A short checklist

Check whether the pack states sodium or salt, and convert before comparing. Count your whole day, not just the supplement. Match the dose to the loss — heavy sweating needs a lot, a desk day needs very little. And if you have high blood pressure, kidney disease, or any advice from a clinician about sodium, follow that rather than a general guideline.

Sources

NHS, "Salt in your diet".
Barnes KA, Anderson ML, Stofan JR, et al. "Normative data for sweating rate, sweat sodium concentration, and sweat sodium loss in athletes: an update and analysis by sport." Journal of Sports Sciences 2019;37(20):2356–2366.