Crazy Ideas: Does Salt Intake Really Affect On Our High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)?

- Harish Jharia

It is a common practice that doctors advise you to reduce salt intake for keeping your blood pressure under control. I wonder if you reduce the salt intake… will the doctor stop the BP pills that you need to take every morning. 


The answer is unambiguously no…! Doctors, infact, advise us to drastically reduce salt intake; in addition to advising us to take BP pills regularly; simply because our BP would not be cured by reducing salt intake. 


I only find it absurd when this salt intake syndrome is blown out of proportions by certain schools of thoughts when they ask people to eat even salads absolutely without salt. 


In fact this misconception is based on the theory that...


"Salt intake increases water retention in our body and in blood. With this the volume of blood is believed to inflate in volume. This enhanced volume of blood increases our blood pressure marginally for a limited period of time. Nevertheless, the effect goes away once the salt flushes out with urine and sweat."


Remember that urine and sweat taste salty because this cleansing system takes away the excessive salt from our body. 


Following are the rolls of salt required for survival of our body: 

1. Sodium content in salt is an essential nutrient that allows an organism to maintain its ionic balance and to retain water to keep hydrated. 
2. Without salt we would dehydrate. 
3. Salt (sodium) plays a major role in human health. It not only feeds nutritional mineral elements to our cells, it also dissolves, sanitizes and cleanses toxic wastes from our system.
4. It is this latter function that makes salt such a healing substance.  
5. All classic biology textbooks refer to salt as the cleanser of bodily fluids.
6. Salt controls the amount of water within our bodies and maintains the critical balance between cells and body fluids.
7. It also aids in the contraction of muscle tissue and serves as a vital ingredient of blood plasma and digestive secretions.
8. I do not mean that we may take excessive salt. In fact our body will reject the attempts of eating excessive salt and eventually result in vomiting. 

Excessive consumption of everything is bad for our body and may damage our system to an extent of incurable condition and salt is no exception. 


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Disclaimer:
This article is written based on my personal observations and on the information collected from the media. My intention for publishing the same is to provide healthy reading and intellectual entertainment and not for educating the visitors. No literature or authentic books have been referred for writing the contents of this article. The visitors are advised not to refer the contents of this article for any research or testimony on academic or legal purposes. The visitors are further advised to consult relevant experts before adapting any information from this article. The author or the website are not responsible for any errors, mistakes, or omissions there in. 
- Harish Jharia
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