Facts on High Blood Pressure Sodium Intake

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Facts on High Blood Pressure Sodium Intake

Simply Cooking - Nutrition

Written by Michael Byrd

Monday, 03 August 2009 15:36

Put down that salt shaker and limit your sodium intake for too much of it may lead to high blood pressure. We often get this advice from health professionals. This is good advice for as long as you follow it.

by MichaelByrd

Put down that salt shaker and limit your sodium intake for too much of it may lead to high blood pressure. We often get this advice from health professionals. This is good advice for as long as you follow it.

We all know that sodium is an essential mineral and therefore you cannot live without it. However, excessive sodium intake can do you more harm than good. Everyday our body only needs a little bit of salt to survive. Still, most Americans have much more than they should. Thus, we need to look for ways to overcome the high blood pressure sodium intake problem.

One of the important reasons why your body uses sodium is it help in normalizing the water balance in your body. However, you need to be conscious of your sodium intake since too much of it can cause water retention in your body which can then lead to edema and an increase in blood volume. The increase in blood volume can stress the circulatory system which eventually leads to high blood pressure. Sure enough there are other reasons for high blood pressure but combined with other factors or even all by itself it is still a cause.

So how much sodium does our body exactly need? The American Heart Association recommended that we should get no more than 2,300 milligrams or a teaspoon of salt a day. But for most adults, as much as 1,100 up to 3,300 milligrams daily is assumed to be safe even though we only need around 500 up to 1,000 milligrams of salt daily in order to function well.

How much salt are we getting right now? It is said that an average American consumes between 6,000 up to 15,000 milligrams of sodium a day and can even reach as high as 28,000 milligrams. This is why sodium intake is such a problem.

So why is it that we are getting more than enough sodium in our diets? The reason behind this is because unlike food in its natural state, the food that we usually eat contains sodium. Sodium is usually added to packaged food, processed food and foods coming from restaurants. We need to learn how to read food labels as the numbers can add up real quick. This will then enable us to keep track of our total sodium intake.

When eating breakfast, lunch, dinners as well as all the snacks in between we need to keep our eyes open on all our food choices. If we want to reduce our sodium intake then we can always choose to eat natural foods like fresh vegetables and fruits, meats, whole grains and everything else that has no sodium added.

If you want to reduce your salt and high blood pressure sodium intake then you can to begin with baby steps. You can stop using prepared foods and use homemade instead. Moreover, start buying fresh products instead of canned goods. Drink lots of water instead of soda and if you really cannot avoid eating packaged foods then make sure you buy only those with low sodium labels.

Simply follow these suggestions together with the other means of lowering blood pressure such as having omega 3 fish oil in your diet, exercising regularly, and reducing stress and you'll definitely see your blood pressure drop down naturally.

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