NASHVILLE, Tenn – Almost 1.3 billion adults aged 30 to 79 are hypertensive and many don’t even know it. Excessive sodium triggers inflammation and disease that begins with high blood pressure. But it can end with setting the saltshaker down. Plus, some changes to your lifestyle.
Americans love salt and ingest much more than the recommended one teaspoon a day.
“We are eating more than 10 times that amount,” said Dr. Annet Kirabo, with Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
That excess salt flips the internal switch leading to hypertension and cardio disease.
“If anyone eats high salt for a long period of time, they’re likely to have their kidneys damaged, and they’re likely to have increased blood pressure,” Kirabo said.
Aaron Finley works in customer service and is a part-time actor. He recently found he is in two high-risk groups: older African Americans and a group called highly sensitive to salt.
“Being an older African-American male, I was predisposed to getting it just with my lifestyle,” said Finley.
During Kirabo’s research study, they continually measured blood pressure while participants were administered either a restricted salt diet or one very high in salt. They discovered just one salty meal can set it off.
“You can go to a doctor and the doctor tells you you don’t have high blood pressure, and yet, you go home and eat a salty meal and get a stroke or get this dangerous increase in high blood pressure,” Kirabo said.
It also creates what’s called oxidative stress.
“Corresponding to salt intake, is a rapid increase in inflammation caused by oxidative stress and oxidation of lipids,” Kirabo said.
Reducing salt, exercising and staying active and involved with others helps, but most important is knowing if you are hypertensive.
“To know is better than not knowing because when you don’t know and you find out, it could be catastrophic,” Finley said.
So put down that saltshaker and get moving!
Kirabo advocated for a precision medicine approach for those who are highly salt sensitive to minimize inflammation and stave off hypertension and cardiac disease.