We should all know by now how too much salt in our diet raises our blood pressure but have you stopped to ask how and what are the dangers?
Well our bodies are kept in balance by the Hypothalamus (An area in the brain its job is to maintain homeostasis within the body). It does this in a number of ways and its a bit akin to a laboratory constantly analysing our blood, checking if we have the correct amount of hormones, is the blood the right consistency, does it have the correct balance of salts to maintain body function. Salt, sodium chloride to give it its proper name is necessary along with other salts like Potassium are necessary for a variety of functions and nerve function being one of them. It is through the interaction between Potassium and Sodium that our nerves work and are able to pass signals down through our nerves from our brains to our muscles etc. If this balance is upset then our bodies won't work correctly.
Now if you are eating a high salt diet (Sodium) and you know what happens if you eat something very salty how do you feel? Very thirsty I shouldn't wonder and this is because the hypothalamus has noticed there is too much sodium in the blood, so the first thing it does is to alert the body and make us thirsty and cause us to drink more fluid in an effort to dilute the blood. At the same time the Hypothalamus causes the pituitary gland to release Vasopressin (Anti diuretic hormone) this is circulated in the blood stream and targets the kidneys not to filter out so much liquid in the blood as waste (Urine becomes more concentrated so you don't pass as much). These two actions generate more blood volume in an effort to dilute the concentration of Sodium (more liquid part of the blood).
Cue the heart, now your poor heart has more work to do, you've upped its work load putting more strain on it. You've still got the same amount of arteries and veins but have more liquid for your heart to pump through, this means your left Ventricle of your heart is under strain thus the action of forcing all this volume of fluid through the same amount of vessels raises the blood pressure. So first and foremost high blood pressure strains the heart and the heart being a muscle, like any other muscle will enlarge to cope with the work. Now the kidneys, they filter impurities and toxins out of the body through a series of tiny tubules called Nephrons, these tiny vessels are very delicate and only one cell thick and thus very fragile. With the raised pressure of all this excess fluid in the blood being forced harder through the circulation, these tiny vessels are easily damaged.
As we get older our arteries, which are a series of elastic muscular tubes, become less elastic, think of washing a pair of knickers hundreds of times eventually the elastic gets spent doesn't it? well its like this with the arteries. Because they have lost this elasticity they cannot cope so well with an increased blood pressure and if these arteries happen to be in the brain, the result can be a burst blood vessel hence one type of stroke. Now couple this with someone who has had a fatty diet eating lots of saturated fats. That fat circulates in the blood stream and just like a sink drain that gets blocked when you try to pour fat down it regularly, the same thing happens in an artery. Fat sticks to the artery walls forming plaques, blood cells become sticky and before you know it you have a clot forming. If this clot travels to the brain you have the other type of stroke. A stroke is where the brain is starved of oxygen because blood flow is restricted to an area and that area of the brain is damaged. If the clot forms in the leg we have a Deep Vein Thrombosis, if it forms in the lungs we have a Pulmonary Thrombosis and if we have a clot in the circulation of the heart we have a Coronary Thrombosis. Obviously too furred up arteries will raise blood pressure too as the heart will have to work harder to push all that volume of blood through narrowed blood vessels.
So now you know why too much salt is bad for you and the worst culprits for harbouring salt are processed foods. Start reading labels and become familiar with recommended daily allowances, you may just save your health a whole lot of trouble
In the UK, the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of Salt is 6 grams for an adult, 1 gram for a baby under 12 months old and between 2-6 grams of salt for a child up until their 11th birthday.
http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/fss/salt/howmuchsalteat/
In the US, the RDA is 2.3 g of sodium, or 5.75 g of salt, since to calculate the amount of salt from sodium you should multiply by 2.5.
Well our bodies are kept in balance by the Hypothalamus (An area in the brain its job is to maintain homeostasis within the body). It does this in a number of ways and its a bit akin to a laboratory constantly analysing our blood, checking if we have the correct amount of hormones, is the blood the right consistency, does it have the correct balance of salts to maintain body function. Salt, sodium chloride to give it its proper name is necessary along with other salts like Potassium are necessary for a variety of functions and nerve function being one of them. It is through the interaction between Potassium and Sodium that our nerves work and are able to pass signals down through our nerves from our brains to our muscles etc. If this balance is upset then our bodies won't work correctly.
Now if you are eating a high salt diet (Sodium) and you know what happens if you eat something very salty how do you feel? Very thirsty I shouldn't wonder and this is because the hypothalamus has noticed there is too much sodium in the blood, so the first thing it does is to alert the body and make us thirsty and cause us to drink more fluid in an effort to dilute the blood. At the same time the Hypothalamus causes the pituitary gland to release Vasopressin (Anti diuretic hormone) this is circulated in the blood stream and targets the kidneys not to filter out so much liquid in the blood as waste (Urine becomes more concentrated so you don't pass as much). These two actions generate more blood volume in an effort to dilute the concentration of Sodium (more liquid part of the blood).
Cue the heart, now your poor heart has more work to do, you've upped its work load putting more strain on it. You've still got the same amount of arteries and veins but have more liquid for your heart to pump through, this means your left Ventricle of your heart is under strain thus the action of forcing all this volume of fluid through the same amount of vessels raises the blood pressure. So first and foremost high blood pressure strains the heart and the heart being a muscle, like any other muscle will enlarge to cope with the work. Now the kidneys, they filter impurities and toxins out of the body through a series of tiny tubules called Nephrons, these tiny vessels are very delicate and only one cell thick and thus very fragile. With the raised pressure of all this excess fluid in the blood being forced harder through the circulation, these tiny vessels are easily damaged.
As we get older our arteries, which are a series of elastic muscular tubes, become less elastic, think of washing a pair of knickers hundreds of times eventually the elastic gets spent doesn't it? well its like this with the arteries. Because they have lost this elasticity they cannot cope so well with an increased blood pressure and if these arteries happen to be in the brain, the result can be a burst blood vessel hence one type of stroke. Now couple this with someone who has had a fatty diet eating lots of saturated fats. That fat circulates in the blood stream and just like a sink drain that gets blocked when you try to pour fat down it regularly, the same thing happens in an artery. Fat sticks to the artery walls forming plaques, blood cells become sticky and before you know it you have a clot forming. If this clot travels to the brain you have the other type of stroke. A stroke is where the brain is starved of oxygen because blood flow is restricted to an area and that area of the brain is damaged. If the clot forms in the leg we have a Deep Vein Thrombosis, if it forms in the lungs we have a Pulmonary Thrombosis and if we have a clot in the circulation of the heart we have a Coronary Thrombosis. Obviously too furred up arteries will raise blood pressure too as the heart will have to work harder to push all that volume of blood through narrowed blood vessels.
So now you know why too much salt is bad for you and the worst culprits for harbouring salt are processed foods. Start reading labels and become familiar with recommended daily allowances, you may just save your health a whole lot of trouble
In the UK, the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of Salt is 6 grams for an adult, 1 gram for a baby under 12 months old and between 2-6 grams of salt for a child up until their 11th birthday.
http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/fss/salt/howmuchsalteat/
In the US, the RDA is 2.3 g of sodium, or 5.75 g of salt, since to calculate the amount of salt from sodium you should multiply by 2.5.
http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/recommendations.htm
http://www.salt.gov.uk/cgi-bin/saltcalc.pl
