What you don’t know can kill you.
That’s not a joke. And there’s a particular kind of food that you love, but it will keep driving your blood pressure upwards.
And it can kill you. That’s also not a joke. But you knew that already.
High blood pressure is a common problem across the world, with over 1 billion people suffering from this ‘silent killer’ condition. So what is one of the major risk factor for developing high blood pressure? Excessive salt, experts would say. While this is common news, new research has discovered that it also works the other way round – people with high blood pressure generally preferred food with high salt content. It’s a double whammy.
For the study, 118 participants were chosen and divided into 4 groups. Two groups consisted of men and women in their early 30s, some of whom had high blood pressure and others who did not have high blood pressure. The other two groups comprised of healthy as well as high blood pressure sufferers –elderly people mostly in their 70’s.
All the participants were offered three types of French bread and asked to choose one after tasting, based on their preference. The breads differed in the amount of salt added – light, medium and excessive salt content.
Interestingly, the healthy people in the 30’s group who did not have high blood pressure chose the light salty version, and the healthy people in the 70’s chose the medium salty French version.
Now for the clincher: people with high blood pressure in both the groups preferred the excessive salty bread.
A variation of the same experiment was conducted two weeks later. The people in all the groups were offered the same three versions of French bread of different degrees of saltiness – but his time all the breads were seasoned with oregano.
This time, more people showed a preference for the light salty version compared to the earlier experiment.
The research basically proves two things: people with high blood pressure generally seem to have a preference for foods with high salt content, which could be an acquired tendency.
But hey, here’s the good news: spices like oregano can be a good and healthy replacement for salt. Neat, eh?
Health tips from Iraq…GOD bless!
Very interesting. It’s almost like for whatever reason the body is craving for having high blood pressure. Maybe that’s just another indicator that we musth deal with the underlying cause of high blood pressure, not just the symptoms.
I think it’s important to point out that many types of salts are actually healthy for you (Blue Heron has actually written about this). But if having high blood pressure makes you crave processed foods with bad salts, then the trouble is double.
Not ME. A recent guest used my computer
THANK YOU FOR HELPING THE PEROPLE ABOUT THE HARMNESS OF FOOD AND GIVE THEM AWARENESS ,WISH YOU ALL THE BEST IN YOUR LIFE ALONGWITH YOIUR STAFF.MOHAMMAD NAWAZ ,KPK PAKISTAN……LONG LIVE PAKISTAN…
THANK YOU FOR HELPING THE PEROPLE ABOUT THE HARMNESS OF FOOD AND GIVE THEM AWARENESS ,WISH YOU ALL THE BEST IN YOUR LIFE ALONGWITH YOIUR STAFF.MOHAMMAD NAWAZ ,KPK PAKISTAN……LONG LIVE PAKISTAN…
I believe we have a natural desire for salt as some is required, but after that the taste is just habit. In trying to reduce salt intake companies that produce processed foods go too far and wonder why sales drop. The change to low salt should be very gradual and then it isn’t noticed. This applies to the home cook as well. The Government could take a part in this by requiring processed foods start gradually reducing salt content over a period of several years to bring the it down by say 25%.
Ms. Dash has many salt substitutes that are pretty good. Also garlic is a good seasoning to help make food tast really good. Try not to eat fast food and processed food if possible. There are many seasonings out there like basil for instance. These seasonings can be used in place of salt.
i take a liquid call aminos in a sprey bottle and after i cook and serve my food i sprey it with it,only has 160 mg,of salt that is for 1/2tsp. but if you sfrey is a small amount ,the name is from BRAGG they have been around for 100 years
Since I have learnt the taking too much salt can be harmful especial if you are having swinging blood pressure. We add small salt not allowing it to be more than needful. in fact we take enough garlic everyday. I believe that God has answer to everything that happen to us in life.
The info shared is very educational and informative.
I have stopped using salt and my B P has dropped significantly .
Iodized table salt is the culprit that pushes up HBP when I stopped using table salt and switched to Himalayan Pink Rock Salts i noticed a big difference. Of course moderation is the key to anything and we do need salt so cutting salt out entirely is not the answer. Hydrogenated oil is a killer if you have HBP best be throwing that stuff out and switching to extra virgin coconut oil. Refined white sugar is also a killer I have found and now I don’t use sugar unless it is cane sugar and organic at that. Juicing fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis helps clean your blood. Research is the key to staying healthy and on top of the manufacturing greedy, misogynistic trolls who don’t give a fig about your health and have been lying to us for years.