health
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 61.9 million U.S. adults take blood pressure medications, but new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that cutting back on salt by just one teaspoon each day can help. It’s the same effect that suggests you may be taking blood pressure medication.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Northwestern Medicine, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham studied a cohort of 213 people between the ages of 50 and 75.
Participants were assessed while eating their usual diet. They also continued a low-sodium diet for one week and a high-sodium diet for another week.
“Most middle-aged to older adults consume diets that are very high in salt,” VUMC Associate Professor of Medicine and co-principal investigator Deepak Gupta, MD, said in a statement to FOX News Digital.
“Compared to an individual’s usual diet, a low-salt diet reduced systolic blood pressure by 6 mm Hg, which is comparable to the effects of commonly used hypertension medications.”
In this study, participants reduced their salt intake by about 1 teaspoon per day compared to their usual diet.
One tablespoon of salt contains about 2,300 mg of sodium.
“The magnitude of the reduction in blood pressure with a low-salt diet was similar among people with normotension, people with controlled hypertension, people with untreated hypertension, and people with uncontrolled hypertension,” said Dr. he told Fox News Digital.
About 70 to 75 percent of study participants saw a reduction in blood pressure, regardless of whether they were already taking the medication, said Norina Allen, Ph.D., a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-principal investigator. It is said that he was , in a press release.
The results were also presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2023 in Philadelphia.
“Until now, we didn’t know whether people who were already taking blood pressure medications could actually lower their blood pressure further by reducing salt intake,” Allen said in the release.
“This highlights the importance of reducing dietary sodium intake to help control blood pressure, even for people taking high blood pressure medications.”
It’s also notable how quickly the participants’ blood pressure dropped after a week of following a low-sodium diet.
“The fact that blood pressure was reduced so significantly in just one week and was well tolerated is important, and given that high blood pressure is such a major health problem around the world, it is important to note that the reduction in blood pressure in the national diet is important. “This highlights the potential impact of salt on public health,” he said. co-investigator Cora Lewis, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said in a release.
“It’s particularly interesting that the products we used in the low-salt diet are now publicly available, so people can get serious about improving their health by improving their diets in this way. .”
Dr. Bradley Serwer, a Maryland-based cardiologist and chief medical officer of Vital Solutions, which provides cardiovascular and anesthesiology services to hospitals nationwide, was not involved in the study. However, the results were carefully examined.
“This level of improvement is comparable to taking blood pressure medication, but without the side effects,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Sodium attracts water and promotes water absorption from the intestines, so it plays an important role in maintaining blood pressure,” the doctor continued.
“As a result, the amount of fluid in the bloodstream increases, which increases pressure and increases the workload on the heart.”
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that adults limit their sodium intake to 1,500 mg or less per day.
The AHA recommends a total daily sodium intake of 1,500 milligrams, but the study was designed to reduce it even further, Allen said.
According to data from the World Heart Federation, high blood pressure is the leading risk factor for death worldwide and affects more than 1 billion people worldwide.
“High blood pressure puts extra pressure on your arteries, which can lead to heart failure, heart attack, and stroke,” Dr. Allen said in the study. “It affects the heart’s ability to work effectively and pump blood.”
According to the CDC, high blood pressure accounted for 691,095 deaths in the United States in 2021.
“This virus is known as the ‘silent killer’ and is responsible for one in eight deaths worldwide,” Gupta told FOX News Digital.
“Preventing hypertension and controlling blood pressure in people with hypertension is important to help people live healthier and longer lives.”
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