How Much Can Lowering Your Salt Lower Your Blood Pressure? A Lot!

You know that cutting back on salt is important for lowering blood pressure. But how important is it? And is it important even if you are on blood pressure lowering medication? Let’s find out!

This new study tells us three important things. First, it tells us that cutting back on salt is important if you have high blood pressure. Second, it tells us just how important it is. And third, it tells us something researchers didn’t know before: can it lower your blood pressure even more if you are already on blood pressure medication?

The study showed that cutting back on salt works, and it works fast. The study included 213 people between the ages of 50 and 75. Some of them had normal blood pressure, some had high blood pressure that was not being treated with drugs, some had high blood pressure that was being controlled by drugs, and some had high blood pressure that drugs were not successfully controllling.

The study lasted only one week. So, if reducing salt worked, it would have to work fast. Some of the people in the study followed a high sodium diet by adding about 2,200mg of salt a day, and some followed a low 500mg of salt a day diet.

When people followed the low sodium diet, blood pressure went down in 73.4% of them. At the end of just one week, systolic blood pressure was a significant 8 mm Hg lower in the low sodium group than in the high sodium group. And it worked whether they were on medication or not.

This study means that cutting your salt by about 1 teaspoon a day can reduce your systolic blood pressure by 6 mm Hg compared to usual diet and by 8 mm Hg compared to a high salt diet. One of the lead researchers said that that effect was comparable to the effect produced by common first line medications for high blood pressure. And it works whether you are on medication or not and whether your medication is working well enough or not.

“The fact that blood pressure dropped so significantly in just one week and was well tolerated is important,” said one of the authors of the study.

JAMA. Published online November 11, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.23651.

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For much more on healthy eating for blood pressure and your heart, see Linda’s book The All New Vegetarian Passport Cookbook, a comprehensive cookbook and health book all in one.

For comprehensive natural help with your health, including heart health and blood pressure, make an appointment to see Linda Woolven now. Linda’s clinic is now open for virtual appointments.