Myth : All Salt Is Out To Kill You And You Shouldnt Eat Any Of It
Eating too much salt can contribute to high blood pressure, which is linked to conditions like heart failure and heart attack, kidney problems, fluid retention, stroke and osteoporosis. You might think this should mean you need to cut out salt completely, but salt is actually an important nutrient for the human body.
Your body uses salt to balance fluids in the blood and maintain healthy blood pressure, and it is also essential for nerve and muscle function. Its impossible to live a life without any salt , but this isnt a problem for most Australians the average Australian is consuming double the recommended amount of salt.
So, while a little salt in your diet is necessary, its important to keep the amount in check. The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend adults eat no more than 5 grams of salt a day, which is less than one teaspoon. Most of us are consuming about 9 grams a day. To help you track how much salt youre eating, you can find out how much salt is in packaged foods by looking at the food label for the sodium level – salt is made up of sodium and chloride. Try to aim for items that have less than 120mg of sodium per 100 grams of the food. You should aim for a maximum of 2000mg of sodium a day.
General Information About The Privacy Of Information
What is personal data? It is any information related to you, for example, your name, telephone, address, photograph, or fingerprints, as well as any information for your identification.
What is sensitive personal data? It is the data that, if unduly disclosed, would affect the most intimate sphere of the human being for example origin, health status, genetic information, sexual preferences, religious, philosophical, moral beliefs, union affiliation, political opinion, among others.
How do we guarantee the protection of your data?
- Appointing a responsible person in charge who will attend your requests for access, rectification, cancellation, and opposition of your personal data.
- With the necessary security measures to guarantee your data against misuse or illicit use, unauthorized access, or against the loss, alteration, theft, or modification of your personal information.
- Training staff.
- Informing you about how it will be used for your information.
What are the guiding principles of personal data protection? They are a series of minimum rules that should be observed by private entities that process personal data , ensuring the proper use of personal information. These principles are:
What are ARCO Rights? Access, Rectification, Cancellation, and Opposition
How To Eat Less Salt
Tips for eating less salt
These ideas will help you get started.
Which foods are high in salt?
Certain foods are particularly high in salt. Try to avoid them or find a lower-salt version:
- tomato ketchup
- tinned, packet and chiller cabinet soups
- teef, chicken and vegetable stock cubes
- gravy granules
- microwave and frozen ready meals
- breaded chicken products
- bacon
- ham
You can also download our free FoodSwitch app which does the hard work for you. By scanning the barcode of a product the app will tell you how much salt it contains and offer suggestions for a similar but healthier alternative.
Understanding food labels
Most of the salt we eat is hidden in the foods we buy, and similar products can vary dramatically in how much salt they contain. For example, two loaves of bread made by different companies may appear to be basically the same, but when you check the labels one contains 1g of salt per slice while the other contains half that.
Check the nutrition information on food labels to see if its low, medium or high in salt, and compare with other products to find the healthy options.
Follow these guidelines to choose lower salt foods.
- Low – 0.3g salt or less per 100g – Eat plenty of these.
- Medium – 0.3-1.5g salt per 100g – These are usually fine to eat, but choose low salt options where you can
- High – 1.5g salt or more per 100g – Try to avoid these or eat them only occasionally
Checking labels for sodium
Follow these guidelines to choose lower sodium foods.
Don’t Miss: Claritin And Hypertension
About Salt Sodium And Potassium
- Sodium is an essential nutrient necessary for maintenance of plasma volume, acid-base balance, transmission of nerve impulses and normal cell function.
- Excess sodium is linked to adverse health outcomes, including increased blood pressure.
- The primary contributors to dietary sodium consumption depend on the cultural context and dietary habits of a population.
- Sodium is found naturally in a variety of foods, such as milk, meat and shellfish. It is often found in high amounts in processed foods such as breads, processed meat and snack foods, as well as in condiments .
- Sodium is also contained in sodium glutamate, used as a food additive in many parts of the world.
- Potassium is an essential nutrient needed for maintenance of total body fluid volume, acid and electrolyte balance, and normal cell function.
- Potassium is commonly found in a variety of unrefined foods, especially fruits and vegetables.
- Increased potassium intake reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure in adults.
This May Be Why Slashing Salt Lowers Blood Pressure
Slash sodium from your diet. Thats the advice inevitably given to everyone.
Restricting sodium intake has been key to reducing blood pressure. Now researchers may have found an underlying mechanism to explain why.
Scientists examined hundreds of metabolites substances produced during digestion from blood samples drawn in a study among 64 black British residents with high blood pressure, or hypertension. All participants were instructed to follow a reduced-sodium diet, but otherwise none were taking medication or receiving treatment for their condition.
The researchers discovered reducing sodium intake resulted in higher levels of two specific metabolites, both associated with lower blood pressure levels and arterial stiffness.
The study taps into the science of metabolomics, which examines how tiny molecules react to changes in their environment. In this case, the sodium levels altered the setting.
While everyone in the study was put on a low-sodium diet, half were given a slow-release sodium tablet for six weeks. The others received placebos. Researchers then switched the pills for an additional six weeks.
We know reduced sodium intake reduces blood pressure and cardiovascular risk. However, the underlying biological mechanisms are not well established, said Dr. Haidong Zhu, lead author of the study published Monday in the American Heart Associations journal Hypertension.
Thats an important group of people to continue studying, she said.
Read Also: How Does Alcohol Increase Blood Pressure Mechanism
How Can I Lower My Blood Pressure In Minutes
If your blood pressure is elevated and you want to see an immediate change, lie down and take deep breaths. This is how you lower your blood pressure within minutes, helping to slow your heart rate and decrease your blood pressure. When you feel stress, hormones are released that constrict your blood vessels.
Potassium As Important As Sodium
The importance of dietary potassium is also underlined in this study. The team found that individuals with the lowest blood pressure were those who had the highest intake of sodium and potassium. Conversely, those with the highest blood pressure had the lowest intake of sodium and potassium.
Moore says: This study and others point to the importance of higher potassium intakes, in particular, on blood pressure and probably cardiovascular outcomes as well.
Similar effects were also seen when magnesium and calcium intakes were analysed higher levels were linked to lower blood pressure, and vice versa.
The authors conclude that:
These long-term data from the Framingham Study provide no support for lowering sodium intakes among healthy adults to below 2.3 grams per day as recommended. This study does support the finding of a clear inverse association between potassium, magnesium, and calcium and blood pressure change over time.
Moore wants her study to play a part in shifting dietary decisions throughout the U.S. She says: I hope that this research will help refocus the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans on the importance of increasing intakes of foods rich in potassium, calcium, and magnesium for the purpose of maintaining a healthy blood pressure.
As more studies conclude that sodiums role in hypertension is less vital than once thought, dietary recommendations are sure to change in line with the findings. This changing field of nutrition science is one to watch.
Read Also: Claritin Blood Pressure
Low Sodium Intake And Cardiovascular Risk
Over the years, the evidence of a close relationship between high sodium intake and hypertension, and high sodium intake and increased cardiovascular risk and mortality, has become increasingly consolidated. For this reason, we are used to consider that the lower the sodium intake is, the better the patient prognosis is. However, the studies that are beginning to shake the foundations of this historic fortress are growing in number. Actually, in the analysis of this topic, several cohort studies and meta-analyses have shown that the relationship between sodium intake and poor patient prognosis have not a linear trend, but rather describe a J-shape curve. In these studies, an increased risk not only in high sodium intake, but also in significantly low sodium intake levels is underlined. To reach this declaration, large patient populations have been studied, including various types of healthy patients or those with different co-morbidities , with wide numbers in all subgroups.
Salt Circulating Eo And Hypertension
The preceding discussion indicates that an increase in brain ouabain is sufficient to raise BP. Nevertheless, in many patients with essential hypertension and in many salt-sensitive experimental models, the ouabain/EO level in the circulation is elevated moreover, in essential hypertensive patients, plasma EO is directly correlated with BP . Indeed, both peripheral and central mechanisms have been suggested to contribute to the ability of dietary salt to raise BP , and we next address the role of EO in the periphery.
Importantly, for the ensuing discussion, neither ACTH nor ouabain induces hypertension in mice with mutant, ouabain-resistant 2 Na+ pumps even though ACTH increases plasma EO in these mice . The latter results emphasize the importance of 2 Na+ pumps and their high-affinity ouabain binding site in the pathogenesis of some forms of hypertension.
Don’t Miss: Can Iwatch Monitor Blood Pressure
A New Look At Sodium And Blood Pressure
Moore and her team took data from 2,632 men and women aged between 30 and 64 years, who were part of the Framingham Offspring Study an offshoot of the Framingham Heart Study. All participants had normal blood pressure at the start of the trial.
Over the 16-year follow-up period, the researchers observed that the participants who consumed under 2,500 milligrams of sodium each day had higher blood pressure than those who consumed higher quantities of sodium.
The results seem counterintuitive. As the authors write: While we expected dietary sodium intake to be positively associated with both SBP and DBP , the opposite was found.
Although the findings appear to kick against the status quo, they are in line with other recent studies asking similar questions. Research has shown that there is a J-shaped relationship between cardiovascular risk and sodium. This means that low-sodium diets and very high-sodium diets both carry a higher risk of heart disease.
Many people in the United States sit in the middle of this curve, where the cardiovascular risk is at its lowest.
We saw no evidence that a diet lower in sodium had any long-term beneficial effects on blood pressure. Our findings add to growing evidence that current recommendations for sodium intake may be misguided.
Lynn L. Moore
The Cycle Of Damage: How Your Heart Is Affected
Over time, excessive salt intake can lead to high blood pressure , which stiffens and narrows the blood vessels. Blood and oxygen flow to key organs decreases. So the heart tries harder to pump blood throughout the body, which further increases blood pressure.
Elevated blood pressure, particularly over a long period of time, puts an incredible strain on the heart, says cardiologist Luke Laffin, MD. It can enlarge the hearts left pumping chamber and weaken the heart muscle .
Unchecked hypertension can also damage the artery walls, which begin to collect fat, leading to heart disease and potentially heart attack or stroke.
The best way to prevent a heart attack is to stop the arteries from becoming damaged, Dr. Laffin says.
Recommended Reading: How To Calibrate Omron Blood Pressure Machine
It’s Time To End The War On Salt
The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science
For decades, policy makers have tried and failed to get Americans to eat less salt. In April 2010 the Institute of Medicine urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate the amount of salt that food manufacturers put into products New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already convinced 16 companies to do so voluntarily. But if the U.S. does conquer salt, what will we gain? Bland french fries, for sure. But a healthy nation? Not necessarily.
This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urinean excellent measure of prior consumptionthe greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.
Endogenous Ouabain And Other Endogenous Cardiotonic Steroids
The idea that a circulating inhibitor of the Na+ pump/Na+-K+-ATPase might be such an agent, and might augment vascular tone in all blood vessels, was first raised in the mid-1970s . One proposal was that, by reducing Na+ pumping, the inhibitor might depolarize vascular smooth muscle myocytes directly because Na+ pumps are electrogenic and make a small contribution to the membrane potential . The depolarization should activate Ca2+ entry , which would be expected to augment vasoconstriction. Such an effect can be true only transiently, however, because, in the steady state, Na+ efflux must rise to equal the Na+ influx. This occurs when a larger fraction of the unblocked pumps are activated by the slightly elevated cytosolic Na+ concentration . Thus, in the steady state, there should be no reduction in the rate of Na+ pumping and in the electrogenic Na+ pump current .
According to an alternative proposal , the small, steady-state elevation of cyt, due to partial inhibition of the Na+ pump, should promote net Ca2+ gain due to increased Ca2+ entry or decreased Ca2+ exit via Na/Ca exchange . The resulting rise in the cytosolic Ca2+ concentration, cyt, should promote vasoconstriction and, in vivo, elevation of BP.
Don’t Miss: Reversing Pulmonary Hypertension
A Taste Of Physiology
Make no mistake about it: salt is essential for human health. The average adults body contains 250 grams of sodium less than 9 ounces, or about the amount in three or four saltshakers. Distributed throughout the body, salt is especially plentiful in body fluids ranging from blood, sweat, and tears to semen and urine.
Sodium is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, always bringing water along with it. It is the major mineral in plasma, the fluid component of blood, and in the fluids that bathe the bodys cells. Without enough sodium, all these fluids would lose their water, causing dehydration, low blood pressure, and death.
Fortunately, it only takes a tiny amount of sodium to prevent this doomsday scenario in fact, some isolated population groups manage perfectly well on just 200 mg a day. About one-quarter of the tongues taste buds are devoted to recognizing salt like other animals, humans can and do seek out salt when they need it. And when dietary salt is in short supply, the body can conserve nearly all its sodium, dramatically reducing the amount excreted in urine and shed in sweat. Remember that water always follows sodium, and youll understand why your skin is dry and your urine scant and concentrated when you are dehydrated and conserving sodium.
How Does Salt Contribute
A high salt diet disrupts the natural sodium balance in the body. This causes fluid retention which increases the pressure exerted by the blood against blood vessel walls . For every one gram of salt we cut from our average daily intake, there would be approximately 6,000 fewer deaths from strokes and heart attacks each year in the UK. It has been estimated that a reduction in salt intake from 10g a day to 6g will reduce blood pressure and could lead to a 16% reduction in deaths from strokes and a 12% reduction in deaths from coronary heart disease. This would prevent approximately 19,000 stroke and heart attack deaths in the UK each year and 2.6 million each year worldwide. Reducing salt is one of the quickest ways to reduce your blood pressure, particularly if you already have high blood pressure.
Also Check: Vinegar To Lower Blood Pressure
What Are The Fda Sodium Targets
The FDA and the AHA support volunteer sodium targets for the food industry. So what do they really mean for you?
Food manufacturing companies and restaurants that adopt the targets will lower the amount of sodium in their foods to meet the new targets. That means healthier foods for you and millions of other consumers. Itll be easier to make the healthy choice.
Does Table Salt Raise Blood Pressure
Eating too much salt can contribute to high blood pressure, which is linked to conditions like heart failure and heart attack, kidney problems, fluid retention, stroke and osteoporosis. You might think this should mean you need to cut out salt completely, but salt is actually an important nutrient for the human body.
Read Also: Does Vinegar Lower High Blood Pressure