A current study shows that decreasing sodium consumption can considerably decrease high blood pressure, even in people on high blood pressure medication. By reducing salt intake by about one teaspoon daily, individuals experienced a significant drop in systolic high blood pressure, highlighting the essential function of diet in handling blood pressure.
A lot of everybody can lower high blood pressure by reducing salt intake, even those on BP drugs.
Nearly everybody can decrease their blood pressure, even individuals currently on blood pressure-reducing drugs, by lowering their sodium consumption. This is according to a new research study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Northwestern Medicine, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
” In the study, middle-aged to senior individuals reduced their salt consumption by about one teaspoon a day compared with their usual diet. The outcome was a decline in systolic high blood pressure by about 6 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), which is comparable to the impact produced by a typically made use of first-line medication for high blood pressure,” said Deepak Gupta, M.D., MSCI, associate professor of Medicine at VUMC and co-principal investigator.
” We discovered that 70-75% of all people, despite whether they are already on blood pressure medications or not, are most likely to see a reduction in their high blood pressure if they reduce the salt in their diet,” said co-principal investigator Norrina Allen, Ph.D., MPH, professor of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
This research study was among the most substantial studies to analyze the effect of dietary sodium reduction on blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure, including those currently on medication. Formerly, it was uncertain if individuals on blood pressure medication could even more lower their high blood pressure by decreasing their sodium consumption.
This is among the biggest research studies to investigate the result of lowering salt in the diet on blood pressure to include individuals with hypertension and currently on medications.
” We previously didnt understand if individuals already on blood pressure medication might really lower their blood pressure more by reducing their sodium,” stated Allen, likewise the Quentin D. Young Professor of Health Policy, and director of the Center for Epidemiology and Population Health at Northwestern.
The study was published on November 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association and was simultaneously presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2023 in Philadelphia.
Deepak Gupta, MD, MSCI, associate teacher of Medicine at VUMC and co-principal private investigator. Credit: Vanderbilt University Medical
The overall everyday sodium consumption recommended by the AHA is to be listed below 1,500 milligrams, and this study was created to reduce it even lower than that, Allen said. “It can be difficult, but lowering your salt in any quantity will be advantageous,” she stated.
Hypertension is the leading reason for morbidity and mortality on the planet. “High blood pressure can cause heart failure, heart attacks, and strokes since it puts additional pressure on your arteries,” Allen stated. “It affects the hearts ability to work efficiently and pump blood.”
How the Study Worked
Middle-age to senior individuals in their 50s to 70s from Birmingham, Alabama, and Chicago were randomized to either a high-sodium diet plan (2,200 mg per day on top of their usual diet plan) or low-sodium diet (500 mg in total each day) for one week, after which they crossed over to the opposite diet for one week.
On the day before each study go to, individuals wore high blood pressure monitors and collected their urine for 24 hours. Among 213 participants, systolic high blood pressure was considerably decreased by 7 to 8 mm Hg when they ate the low-sodium diet plan compared with high-sodium diet, and by 6 mm Hg compared with their usual diet plan.
In general, 72% of participants experienced a lowering of their systolic high blood pressure on the low-sodium diet compared with their usual diet.
Conclusions and outcomes
” The result of reduction in dietary salt on high blood pressure lowering was constant across almost all people, including those with normal blood pressure, hypertension, treated high blood pressure, and without treatment blood pressure,” Gupta said.
” Just as any physical activity is much better than none for many people; any salt decrease from the current normal diet plan is likely much better than none for the majority of people with concerns to high blood pressure,” he said.
” This enhances the importance of decrease in dietary salt intake to assist control high blood pressure, even amongst people taking medications for hypertension,” Allen included.
The blood pressure-lowering effect of dietary salt decrease was achieved rapidly and securely within one week.
Public Health Implications
” The fact that high blood pressure dropped so substantially in simply one week and was well tolerated is necessary and stresses the possible public health effect of dietary salt reduction in the population, offered that hypertension is such a substantial health concern worldwide,” stated co-investigator Cora Lewis, MD, MSPH, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology, and teacher of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
” It is particularly amazing that the items we utilized in the low sodium diet are generally offered, so individuals have a genuine chance at improving their health through improving their diet in this method,” Lewis stated.
Recommendation: “Effect of Dietary Sodium on Blood Pressure: A Crossover Trial” by Deepak K. Gupta, Cora E. Lewis, Krista A. Varady, Yan Ru Su, Meena S. Madhur, Daniel T. Lackland, Jared P. Reis, Thomas J. Wang, Donald M. Lloyd-Jones and Norrina B. Allen, 11 November 2023, JAMA.DOI: 10.1001/ jama.2023.23651.
Other authors consist of Krista Varady, Ph.D., Yan Ru Su, M.D., Meena Madhur, M.D., Ph.D., Daniel Lackland, Ph.D., Jared Reis, Ph.D., Thomas Wang, M.D., and Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D
. The research was supported by grant R01HL148661 and contracts 75N92023D00005 and 75N92023D00004 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
The content is solely the obligation of the authors and does not always represent the main views of the National Institutes of Health.