High Sodium Foods and Diet
For people with specific health problems such as high blood pressure, the should avoid high sodium foods and diet accordingly to improve their health. It is the job of your kidneys to regulate the amount of sodium in your body. When the level of sodium is low, your kidneys will conserve sodium and retain water. When the levels are high, they will get rid of the excess amount in the urine. This is the normal state where the kidneys do a good job dealing with high sodium levels. A high sodium diet can alter the cardiovascular system and cause problems.
If your kidneys do not eliminate enough sodium in the urine, the sodium will start to accumulate in your blood. This can cause potential problems because sodium attracts and holds water. The excess volume causes your blood volume to increase. The increased blood volume, will require your heart to work harder to move more blood through your arteries, increasing pressure. In certain diseases such as congestive heart failure, this excess pressure causes the heart to back up and fluid to enter the lungs. When the excess salt is eliminated, the heart failure improves. A similar set of circumstances develops in cirrhosis and chronic kidney disease. Both of these diseases can lead to an inability to regulate sodium.
Some people are more sensitive to sodium than are others and will have greater effects. People who are sensitive to sodium will retain it more easily, leading to excess fluid volume and higher blood pressure. For people in that group, foods high in sodium levels increase your chance of developing and maintain high blood pressure and caused worsened heart disease.
So for people who want to regulate their sodium, there are some principles to remember. A pinch and a dash of salt can quickly add up to very high and unhealthy levels of sodium. This happens frequently when many foods already contain a lot of sodium. Almost eleven percent of the sodium in the average U.S. diet comes from adding salt to foods while cooking or eating. This is includes other sodium containing items. Therefore the majority of the sodium, over 77 percent, comes from eating foods that are prepared or processed. So people may limit the amount of salt added to food, the food itself may already have a lot of salt.
A reduction in foods high in sodium levels by even 1 gram in the diet every day may help decrease the rate of death for people. This study was done by University of California San Francisco researchers and was presented at an American Heart Association’s Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease. The researchers reported that a 3 gram a day reduction in salt intake could result in 6% fewer cases of new cases of heart disease, 8% fewer heart attacks, and 3% fewer deaths in the US. This is why people should avoid high sodium foods and diet.