Oh, salt, the magical fairy dust that brings food to life. Salt is pretty awesome. But, it also has the power to make your blood pressure skyrocket, all thanks to the one the molecule in salt, called sodium chloride. This is the must-have ingredient that gives salt it’s salty taste. It just happens to also have a very powerful effect on how your body handles water.
When it comes to high blood pressure, the ‘Sodium’ part of the sodium chloride is the element of interest. But, let’s back it up a little, start with the relationship between sodium and your body …..
First of all, salt is essential for human health. The average adult’s body contains about a quarter kilogram of sodium, about the amount in three or four saltshakers. Distributed throughout the body, salt is the major mineral in plasma, the fluid component of blood, and in the fluids that bathe the body’s cells. Sodium is needed to keep the right amount of water in these fluids. Without enough sodium, all these fluids would lose their water, causing dehydration, low blood pressure, and death. With excess sodium, the opposite happens, causing bodily swelling from fluid overload, high blood pressure and it’s effects such as stroke, heart injury, and again, death.
How do we get the sodium in our bodies
The body obtains sodium through food and drink and loses it primarily in sweat and urine. It’s through this dietary sourcing that ‘excessive intake’ of sodium usually occurs. With today’s diet, it’s almost impossible to keep the sodium intake within the right limits. Being an essential mineral for health, Sodium should be made available through dietary intake. However, more of it, doesn’t necessarily mean more benefits. Beyond normal limits of intake, sodium becomes a dangerous mineral, endangering your heart and, ultimately, longevity, through blood pressure elevation.
Why salt raises blood pressure
When the concentration of sodium in the blood, increases, e.g, following a nice ‘mchomo’ party experience on a beautiful satuday evening, where everyone came (…including Rodger, who ‘…surprisingly came this time’), the body naturally responds in the attempt to keep the fluild concentrations within normal limits. This effort to ‘counter-dilute’ the fluids, especially blood, back to within normal levels, involves more water being drawn in from other storage zones. The body, additionally increases the amout of sodium it’s letting go, in the urine as an extra measure to keep the blood’s concetration of minerals correctly balanced. Unfortunately, in many cases, these measures are overwhelmed by the excessive amounts of ingested sodium. With more water drawn into the blood stream, the volume of blood increases, causing a ‘trafic jam’ of sorts in the blood vessels. This is what causes the increase in the blood pressure. The biggest immediate victim of this series of events is your heart, that now, has to push this ‘heavy traffic’ of blood through the vessels. Repeated or sustained subjection of the heart to this kind of work, ultimately leads to damage to the heart. You know how that story ends.