Is your diet laden with salty food? Make sure you keep monitoring your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Consuming a diet high in sodium may lead to heart diseases, and increase the risk of early death, claims a new study. The research, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.About 3,000 individuals with pre-hypertension or high blood pressure were studied for the research that tried to confirm a linear relationship between excess salt intake and early mortality.
The scientists said that, it is very hard to examine one's sodium intake through a dietary questionnaire. Sodium is hard to measure, because so many times it is hidden, and you don't even know how much of it are you consuming in a day. For better estimation, the scientists took into account sodium excretions.
In this particular study, the scientists used multiple measures to get a more accurate count. One of the common challenges that could have hindered the results were the fluctuating sodium levels, that happens through the day.
So to get an accurate measure of a person's sodium intake on a given day they studied a 24 hour sample. Sodium consumption is likely to change from day to day too. Which is why to get a full picture of sodium intake, one needs to study samples of multiple days.
The team assessed sodium intake in multiple ways, including conventional and unconventional approaches.
The methods included estimates based on the formulae including the Kawasaki formula, used in previous studies, as well as ones based on the gold-standard method, which uses the average of multiple, non-consecutive urine samples.
The findings concluded that the gold-standard method showed a direct linear relationship between increased sodium intake and increased risk of death.
Epidemiological studies associating health outcomes with unreliable estimates of sodium intake may prove detrimental in understanding hypertension. One needs to study the sodium intake in much detail.
Dr. Namita Nadar, Chief Dietician at Fortis Hospitals, Recommends Tips To Regulate Your Salt Intake.
1. To make sure your sodium levels are regulated, it is very important to keep yourself hydrated and drink at least 2 litres of water every day.
2. Ditch processed food at all costs, go for fresh vegetables and fruits.
3. Always read the labels on the product to be able to pick low sodium food.
4. Swap regular table salt with himayalan rock salt, sea salt, etc. for your favourite recipes. As a matter of fact, salt can be replaced from any recipe except from the ones which contain yeast.
5. Eat green leafy vegetables and summer veggies, they are full of antioxidants and minerals like potassium, that cut negative effects of sodium. Include more low sodium foods like bitter gourd, eggplant, barley water and pear.
Follow these steps and monitor your salt intake naturally.