Blood Pressure
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118. Experts opine that we eat much more than twice the salt we should eat. The sodium, as a preservative, hides in processed foods to prolong their shelf life or to make bland or bitter food taste better. Breakfast cereals and breads have salt added to enhance their flavour. Unfortunately many people have become hooked on salty foods and snacks.
119. One should also beware of the boasts on the processed and packaged food labels. For example, “light in sodium” crisps have half the amount of salt you find in normal variety. “Reduced” or “less sodium” means 25% less than normal. Even “sodium-free” foods have upto 5 mg sodium per serving. Addition of mono-sodium-glutamate (MSG), a flavour enhancer amino acid called Chinese salt, further adds to the content of sodium in processed or freshly prepared foods, especially Chinese food.
120. It is an old discovery and universal truth supported by good evidence that reducing the amount of salt in the diet does lower BP. However, there are variations in the way individual bodies handle salt and some people are more sensitive to it than others. This is probably true of people with a strong family history of hypertension, and it is also evident that older people are more salt-sensitive, as are people who are of Afro-Caribbean origin. It has been estimated that about 60% people who have hypertension are sensitive to salt i.e. they retain it more easily leading to fluid retention and increase in BP. That means salt-sensitive hypertensive person can help lower their BP by eating less salt.
121. Adjusting to low-salt or no-salt diet can be a little difficult at first, but you will probably find that, if you can consistently keep your salt intake down, then after about a month or so you actually prefer your food with less or no salt. You eventually get “converted” to enjoying low-salt or even no-salt foods.
122. Hypertension patients should particularly avoid MSG, baking soda, canned vegetables, commercially processed and packaged foods and soft drinks loaded with harmful chemical additives, fast food, meat tenderisers, soya sauce, pickles, salted snacks, burgers, meat pies, sausages, salted nuts, bhujia, pakoras, samosas etc etc.
