How does salt affect the Blood pressure?!

Random,
Salt, or sodium chloride, is necessary for the body to function, for its potassium and sodium content which maintains water balance in the body. If you don't get enough salt, you can suffer dehydration. Salt is also used in seasoning to bring out the flavour of tasteless food; without it, food we usually add it to can be bland. However, consuming too much salt, (The US sodium RDA of less than 2,400 mg is higher than the UK Recommended Nutritional Intake (RNI) whose upper limit for sodium is 1,600 mg.), can damage health. It upsets your stomach, increases calcium loss in the kidneys and, above all, increases the risk of high blood pressure, itself a source of cardiac and cerebral illness. Any overconsumption also makes water retention and swelling worse. Salt also sharpens the tastebuds and increases appetite. The saltier the dish, the more likely you are to want more, so it can, indirectly, be responsible for weight gain. People with high blood pressure should consume less sodium. Recent research has shown that people consuming diets of 1,500 mg of sodium had better blood pressure lowering benefits. These lower-sodium diets also can keep blood pressure from rising and help blood pressure medications work better. The more sodium in your blood, the more blood volume increases because sodium attracts and retains water. As a result, the heart has to work harder to move the increased volume of blood through your blood vessels. This creates increased strain on the arteries and high blood pressure. A medical study showed that in people with high blood pressure, eating less salt in the diet significantly lowers blood pressure - as much as taking a single blood pressure medication. The people in the study who consumed the least amount of salt - 1,500 milligrams a day - experienced the most dramatic decrease, this was measured as an average drop of 8.9 mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) in systolic pressure and of 4.5 mm Hg in diastolic pressure. [The higher (systolic) number represents the pressure while the heart contracts to pump blood to the body. The lower (diastolic) number represents the pressure when the heart relaxes between beats.] You enquire where the water comes from that the salt attracts. A complete answer to this "simple" question gets pretty complicated because the answers are not so "simple." A complete explanation to your question could be, and probably has been, the topic of books! I shall be as brief as possible! About two-thirds of the weight of an adult human consists of water. About two-thirds of this water is located within cells, while the remaining third consists of extracellular water, mostly in the blood plasma and in the interstitial fluid that bathes the cells. This water, amounting to about five percent of body weight (about 5 L in the adult), serves as a supporting fluid for the blood cells and acts as a means of transporting chemicals between cells and the external environment. It is basically a 0.15M solution of salt (NaCl) containing smaller amounts of other electrolytes, the most important of which are bicarbonate (HCO3–) and protein anions. The water content of our bodies is tightly controlled in respect to both total volume and its content of dissolved substances, particulary ions. Drinking constitutes only one source of our water; many foods, especially those containing cells (fruits, vegetables, meats) are an important secondary source. In addition, a considerable amount of water (350-400 mL/day) is produced metabolically — that is, from the oxidation of glucose derived from foods. See link below.
(Edited to add link, sorry!)


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Here is the link mentioned above


http://tiny.cc/sxf6a



Hope this helps
matador 89

Good question that I love answering!

OK so i try to explain this to my Patients daily:
Salt and sodium are different, remember that. Yes table salt is sodium chloride, but its still not pure sodium so chemically in the body, they react differently (thats why recommended daily allowances for salt are higher than sodium on a low sodium diet) Basically: sodium attracts water, wherever it goes, water follows.
Now blood pressure is the measure of pressure in millimeters of mercury(mmHg) that the fluid inside the artery is exerting on the artery wall. To much pressure on anything will eventually break it down.
Look up a AAA (abdominal Aortic Aneurism) or hemmhoragic stroke.
Now its tough to explain this one aspect of the human body as every system effects and works with the others, so I am gonna assume that you have a basic grasp of each body system.
So when you drink water it goes down the esophogus, through the stomach, into the duodenum and this, in the first part of the small intestine is where the minerals are mostly absorbed into the bloodstream (via the mesenteric arteries and pull back the the heart via the viens). The water will be absorbed out later in the large intestine. So now the sodium content of the blood goes up, and as it travels through the bloodstream towards the heart it is pulling water to it from every cell it passes. This nbot only dehydrates the cells, the increase fluid volume in the blood vessels increases the blood pressure. Now as all the extra water gets to the kidneys, it would normally be dumped out into the bladder to be urinated away, but the increased sodium in the nephron tubules, causes the kidneys to retain the water to keep the sodium diluted, so it wount pull even more water from the body. This function is meant to keep you hydrated in places when access to water is scarce but in this case it keeps the fluid content of your blood very high, keeping your blood pressure high, until all the sodium is slowly secreted through the kidneys and used elswhere and everything can return to normal(homeostasis). Too much sodium in the blood is toixic to the brain! Its very in depth and there are many many other minerals that need to be in balance as well, but that is kind of a simple way to put it. Sorry if its confusing!

But not as confusing as the person below! I dont even get what he is trying to say, you didnt ask about salt and flavor of food. Also the "results" of his study are wrong. Yes some people can decrease BPby cutting sodium, but not the people who's high BP is secondary to heart problems! Thats false, as well as a bunch of otheer confusing things...like salt leading to obesity. The fact still remains that salt (NaCl) and sodium (Na) are DIFFERENT CHEMICALS! salt makes you retain water ate a slower rate, sodium sucks it right out of you, dehydrating you and blowing your BP up.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.j…

HCP-PA/ER trauma/primary care provider