Salts And Their Effects
Raised salt has an adverse effect on multiple organs.
Brain
Raised blood pressure may lead to dementia (known as vascular dementia). The damage caused by the extra blood pressure may become so severe that the arteries burst or become completely clogged. If this happens, then the part of the brain that was receiving the blood no longer gets the oxygen and nutrients it needs and dies. The result is a stroke, where you lose the ability to do the things that part of the brain used to control.
Heart
The raised blood pressure caused by eating too much salt may damage the arteries leading to the heart. This may lead to angina (sharp pains in the chest when being active). With this condition, the heart muscle cells are not receiving enough oxygen and nutrients. Lowering blood pressure may help to alleviate the problem. If the arteries burst or become completely clogged the result is a heart attack. The best way to prevent a heart attack is to stop the arteries from becoming damaged by eating less salt.
Kidneys
Your body removes unwanted fluid by filtering your blood through your kidneys. To do this, your kidneys use osmosis to draw the extra water out of your blood. Eating salt raises the amount of sodium in your bloodstream and wrecks the delicate balance, reducing the ability of your kidneys to remove the water which results in higher blood pressure. If someone is taking a diuretic medication for high blood pressure reducing salt intake will make the blood pressure medicine more effective.
Arteries
The extra blood pressure caused by too much salt intake puts extra strain on the walls of the arteries. Tiny muscles in the artery walls become stronger and thicker. This raises the peripheral vascular resistance. This cycle of increasing blood pressure can ultimately lead to the arteries bursting or becoming so narrow that they then clog up entirely.
How much salt is too much?
An adult should eat no more than 6g of salt (one teaspoonful) a day. Most of the salt we eat every day is "hidden". Roughly 80% of the salt we eat is hiding in processed foods like bread, biscuits and breakfast cereals, and prepared ready meals or takeaways. Only 20% comes from the salt we add while cooking or at the table.
Kidney removes unwanted electrolyte and fluid from our body using osmosis. Eating increase amount of salt raises the amount of sodium in bloodstream hence leading to increase water retention. This results in higher blood pressure due to extra fluid in the bloodstream. If a person has pre-existing kidney disease and hypertension then uncontrolled blood pressure can lead to kidney failure. Increased fluid overload puts extra strain on tiny muscles of arteries leading to their hypertrophy over the period of time. Hypertrophy of their muscle leads to narrowing the lumen of vessel hence leading to increased peripheral resistance.
Increase in circulating fluid, increased peripheral vascular resistance leads to extra effort on the heart to pump out fluid to all organs leading to hypertrophy of cardiac muscles
It’s like a vicious cycle. Increase salt intake —> leading to increase water retention, increase in circulating fluid —-> extra effort on heart, kidney, arteries leading to end-organ damage.
Hence a reduction in dietary salt from the current intake of 9-12 gram/ day to the recommended level of less than 5-6 gram/day will have a major beneficial effect on cardiovascular health.
