Avoid Salt to Reduce Blood Pressure

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Sodium is a vital nutrient. In fact, our bodies consist primarily of water and sodium. The human body can’t make its own sodium, yet it’s essential to our survival. It assists in the transport of nutrients and oxygen throughout the body and also facilitates nerve transmission and muscle movement.

Although we may be genetically wired to need some sodium, our ancestors ate far less than we do today. For millions of years, humans ate a diet that contained less than 1 gram (1,000 milligrams) of salt per day. Today, some people consume up to 10 times that amount. Much of what we consume is excreted in our sweat and urine, but individuals vary in their capacity to flush salt from their bodies. Scientists think our genetic makeup is still geared to process the smaller amounts of salt our ancestors ate, which is why our increased salt consumption leads to higher incidences of heart and kidney disease.

The mechanism by which salt increases blood pressure is poorly understood at this point. Some researchers think that it’s related to fluctuating fluid pressure influenced by the kidneys’ ability to excrete salt. The body’s ability to monitor this filtration process tends to diminish with age, and certain people tend to be more salt sensitive, particularly blacks, the elderly and the obese.

The consequences of a high-salt diet go beyond high blood pressure, especially for the cardiovascular system. Excess sodium can damage the muscles of the heart, stiffen arteries and impede blood flow. In a recent review of medical literature, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine concluded that there was consistent evidence to link increasing salt consumption to kidney tissue injury.

SALT AND HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Although there’s much dissent in the medical community about the specifics, one point that all the experts agree upon is that there is a direct link between excess salt in the diet and high blood pressure. Many of the early studies about salt and high blood pressure looked at cultural information. Early research compared societies who ate very little salt with populations that ate higher amounts and found that with very few exceptions, those who ate more salt had much higher blood pressure. Later studies conducted in laboratory settings were less conclusive.

The INTERSALT study of more than 10,000 people in 52 different study centers showed a clear link between salt and blood pressure; however, the effect upon individuals varied greatly. But, when the researchers compared the higher blood pressure levels against the participants’ age, a pattern began to emerge. While young adults were generally less sensitive, middle-aged people or older were more likely to have high blood pressure.

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