Salt and high Blood Pressure in the News

The Canadian news has been full of the story that Hypertension Canada’s education task force’s most recent annual review has recommended raising the acceptable level of sodium from 1,500mg to 2,000mg. Most people consume an average of 3,400mg of salt a day, so, either way, the recommendation is to reduce salt intake.

Reducing salt is important if you have high blood pressure. Salt increases blood pressure. Cultures that do not add salt to their food have virtually no high blood pressure.

But what the news reports did not tell the public is that . . .

it is not just how much salt you take in that is important.

At least as important as reducing your intake of salt is increasing your ratio of potassium to salt. To fully address the problem of high blood pressure, you must have a lot more potassium in your diet than salt. But the standard North American diet provides at least twice as much salt as potassium. The fastest and most effective way to increase the ratio of potassium to salt in your diet is to switch to a vegetarian diet. Plant foods are much higher in potassium. Most meats have a potassium:sodium ratio of about 4:1 to 6:1. Most fish have a potassium:sodium ratio of only about 2:1 to 4:1. Most fruits and vegetables have a potassium:sodium ratio of at least 50:1 and many of them of over 100:1.