How Does Salt Influence Blood Pressure?

Keeping your blood pressure within a healthy range is essential to feeling your best, but seasonings high in sodium — particularly salt itself — can spike your blood pressure levels without you even realizing it. Salt leads to water retention in your body, which can lead to high blood pressure, putting your kidneys, heart, and even your brain in great danger.

Reduced Kidney Function
It’s the job of your kidneys to filter excess water out of your blood, cleaning out the unwanted water through urination. This is accomplished by a balance between potassium and sodium in your system — but every time you eat salt, that balance shifts. Since your body is retaining extra fluid, your blood pressure is raised and your kidneys can no longer function properly and must work harder only to accomplish less. Too much salt over time can lead to serious kidney disease and failure.

Clogged Arteries
As your arteries work harder to process extra salt, your blood pressure is raised and arteries must create miniscule muscles to pump things through and filter them faster. This is how clogged arteries, which can lead to burst arteries and fatal organ damage, form, as the arteries are deprived of their necessary oxygen.

Heart Failure
We know excess salt leads to clogged heart arteries, which allows for less blood to reach the heart, resulting in reduced function. This can lead to extreme physical pain (angina in active patients) and further burst arteries in the heart. Over time, however, these problems can lead to a loss of oxygen and essential nutrition, and can result in a heart attack.

Brain
If blood can’t reach the brain due to clogged arteries from eating too much salt, severe psychological disorders, such as dementia, can happen. If you are not mindful over the years of your salt consumption, as with the previously mentioned organs, oxygen can’t reach the brain, leading to a stroke.

To lower your blood pressure and ensure a longer life, keep an eye on your daily salt intake and be sure to remain active.

Check another value?

Change the numbers in the field

Systole
(upper value):
Diastole
(lower value):


12 thoughts on “How Does Salt Influence Blood Pressure?”

  1. I have high blood pressure. I have kidney failure also. I ate Asian food and felt pain in my back, could it be my kidneys are affected? I will mot eat that again. I am scared. My blood pressure lately have been high. On the dialysis machine my blood pressure is 210 over 113. What is wrong. I can’t understand why its so high.

  2. I drink salt water every day and use lots of pink salt on everything cause I am a keto. My blood pressure is 111/62 and heart rate 83 today so I call bull poop to salt theory and say it is sugar to blame

  3. My blood pressure spiked when I started a new job. What I didn’t know is important. I thought the new job was causing my body stress because I was walking more than I ever have since getting out the Military in 2003. Well, that is not the problem. I was soaking daily in a lot of Epsom salt after work to rid the aches and pain; not knowing this was causing my body to retain water and I noticed my weight going up, but I know I was losing weight due to the walking. I had to call to get on meds. The water retention is what was causing the problem. After day two on the meds is back normal. Praise God!
    Please get your pressure checked; I did not feel any problems. Epsom salt soaks are only for occasionally and not daily.

  4. My uncle’s blood pressure has been 160/40 for months now. Is this normal? If no, what should he do to normalize his blood pressure level.
    Thanks.

  5. My bp has been in the stage 2 numbers for about 2 weeks.
    Example= 171/97…and After
    Wakeing up from a full night sleep my pulse runs between
    99 & 140, also if nap off/on
    All day it still runs between
    99 & 140..OR If I’m doing
    Nothing, What’s Happining?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top