Cutting back on salt intake could be as effective as hypertension medicine: study

People are having to take medication in fact to help regulate their blood pressure and much of that has to do with a person’s diet Now new research is showing that cutting even one teaspoon of salt from your diet can lower your blood pressure just as much as some

Medications for more I want to bring in CTV medical expert Dr Marlo Shapiro thank you dror for joining us this morning to talk about salt and not salt of the earth it’s about the power of what we can do to really contribute to our own well-being when you look at this

Study so you know I think it’s important information because what we do in our home what we do when we eat out really has an impact on hypertension just how bad is high blood pressure in Canada way more than we think because a lot of it is undiagnosed or not treated to Target

And it gets higher in prevalence as you get older so anywhere from one in four to one in three of the population but with advancing age more and more hypertension and is um this this study that looked at the at Salt are you surprised at the findings and and and

What we got not so much in terms of that lowered blood pressure pressure but how quickly it lowered blood pressure so if you look at a teaspoon of salt doesn’t sound like it’s very much that’s about 2,300 milligrams and that’s the upper limit of what all of us should have the

American Heart Association says 1500 milligrams but that’s not added salt that’s a salt that’s in your diet that you’re unaware of so in this study what they did was they stratified two groups of people one to a low salt diet that had about 500 Mig and another one that

Had an additional 1100 migr and what they found was was that 25% of the people entering the study had normal blood pressure 29% of them had untreated hypertension and of the remaining group you either had hypertension that was not at all read reaching its Target or you had hypertension that was totally under

Out of control and it really didn’t matter where you were in terms of any of these groups when you went on the first week of the diet which was a low sodium diet and then you flipped to a high sodium diet what you saw within the

First seven days was that a drop of blood pressure regardless of where you were on that Continuum of about 8 mm of mercury and that’s about what a standard first line blood pressure is going to do so you know the high salt diet that’s probably what most of us have a normal

Plus 1100 added the low salt diet trying to get to 500 milligrams is really difficult to do but it really made a huge difference in terms of the outcome I can imagine trying to get rid of salt in your diet because a lot of it’s

Hidden isn’t it most of it is hidden so if you look at what’s been studied and what’s been true in terms of what diet can I use for high blood pressure there’s a diet called the DASH diet it stands for the dietary approach to stop hypertension and obviously it’s more

Vegetables fruits and lower fat Dairy lower saturated fat or none if you can get there to limit the sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams from all sources but even lower will be better and then if you look at your sources of protein it’s the typical things that you’ll think

About we want lean meats Not seeds and legumes lots of whole grain products and fat for your low-fat Dairy we really see a difference in terms of how blood pressure looks on that diet or not on that diet but the trick is to know what’s going into your mouth and what

You’re consuming in terms of salt and and let’s talk a little bit about the how much is the amount of salt like is it a handful a day is it this much a day it’s I don’t think people can visualize it no so it’s not even a question of

Visualizing because you’re right it’s hard to visualize what is a teaspoon of salt never mind your salt shaker look at the foods that you’re eating for example if you have one or two slices of average bread probably getting 400 milligrams of sodium that’s pretty shocking because

That’s almost 25% of what you want if you look at something like prepared soups that may be days of sodium because they’re so high so the all source that we think for the average person is 2300 milligrams that’s a teaspoon but it doesn’t count what’s in the food that

You’re eating so think about your favorite snack foods yeah we were just discussing that off air salt vinegar chips so the salt is in the name I know yeah so if you look at the serving size and you look at what a serving size is it’s much smaller than you re recognize

But go look down the list in terms of what percent of the salt intake you’re getting it’ll give you the percent based on a 2300 milligram serving but most people don’t recognize what’s the basic salt and what I’m doing and then the added salt that we put in even if you

Cook without added salt it’s easy to surpass that recommendation of 1500 milligrams per day and if you have high blood pressure you want to really get down to the 500 milligrams per day so you have to be a label reader don’t eat out and also don’t get depressed at the

Beginning cuz when you go from a regular diet to a low salt diet things do taste different but eventually your taste buds do accommodate and it tastes pretty good again well you actually start tasting the real taste you start tasting as opposed to the salt and if you are

Someone who has a low salt diet and then you have something that’s salty you immediately taste that difference so we want you to do the reverse but think about all sources not just that teaspoon of what I’m adding what’s in there already that you’re unaware of all right

Went are some other ways that people can uh kind of work on their blood pressure we’re going away from the salt a little bit ruce the salt intake that’s important critical because of that 8 mimet drop we saw within a week but certainly lifestyle diet activity all really important being sedentary and

Also know what your numbers are we have a lot of Canadians who are completely unaware that they have hypertension and even when they’re treated they’re unaware are they treated to targets so it really is know your numbers know your salt intake and just be aware of what

You’re doing all right Dr Shir thank you very much always a pleasure CTV medical expert Dr Marlin Shapiro thank you so much

CTV’s medical expert Dr. Marla Shapiro on a new study that shows cutting back on salt can be as effective as hypertension medicine.

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