More research confirms that salt is a culprit in blood pressure

A new research from the University of Alabama shows that a high salt diet is detrimental to resistant blood pressure. Resistant blood pressure is when medication does not impact the pressure or when a person requires four or more medication to bring their blood pressure under control. Put away the salt shaker people.

Too much salt can contribute to resistant high blood pressure despite taking several medications to control it, University of Alabama researchers report.

High blood pressure is called resistant hypertension when blood pressure remains above goal despite their taking three medications to lower it. High blood pressure that is under control, but requires four or more medications to treat it, is also considered resistant to treatment.

Dr. Eduardo Pimenta, now at the Department of Hypertension and Nephrology at the Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

For the study, Pimenta’s team randomly assigned 13 patients with resistant high blood pressure, to a high-or low-salt diet. These patients were all taking at least three blood pressure medications.

The researchers found that patients on the low-salt diet saw their systolic blood pressure drop by 22.6 mmHg, and their diastolic blood pressure dropped by 9.2 mmHg, compared with people on high-salt diet.

People should try and keep their salt intake to below 2,300 milligrams daily, and  those patients with medically resistant hypertension, a closely monitored low-salt diet 1/81,500 milligrams daily 3/8 should be considered experts agreed.