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Cutting 1 teaspoon of salt works as well as blood pressure meds, study finds
Cutting 1 teaspoon of salt from your diet each day can lower your top blood pressure reading just as much as a typical hypertension medication, even if you don’t have high blood pressure, a new study found.
A teaspoon of salt is 2,300 milligrams — that’s the top daily limit for people over 14 recommended by the latest US nutritional guidelines. However, the American Heart Association recommends a diet with less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day.
“This is the first study to show that people who are already on blood pressure medication can lower their blood pressure even more by limiting sodium,” said coprincipal investigator Norrina Allen, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
“And regardless of medication, we found 70% to 75% of people are likely to see a reduction in their blood pressure if they lower the sodium in their diet,” Allen said.
High blood pressure is often called the “silent killer,” because there are no symptoms — the only way to know if you have it is to test for it. Yet hypertension affects 1 in 3 adults worldwide and can lead to heart attack, heart failure, kidney damage and stroke, according to a 2023 report by the World Health Organization.
Nearly half of all Americans live with high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association. About a third of those have “resistant” hypertension, high blood pressure that has not responded despite the concurrent use of three types of medications. A 2021 study found men ages 20 to 49 are up to 70% more likely to have uncontrolled hypertension than women of the same age.
“Most people today eat way too much salt because it’s added into nearly everything we eat,” said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver.
“A teaspoon of salt may seem like a small amount. However, that added salt seems to have an effect on blood pressure that is surprisingly large,” said Freeman, who was not involved in the study.
Middle-aged and older adults
The study, published Saturday in the journal JAMA, assigned 213 people ages 50 to 75 to one week of a high- or low-sodium diet. After eating that diet for seven days, each person then switched to the alternate diet.
About 25% of the participants had normal blood pressure, while another 25% had untreated hypertension. Of the remaining group, 20% had blood pressure under control, while 31% did not.
During the high-salt week, people ate their normal diet, along with two bouillon packets, each containing 1,100 milligrams of sodium. During the low-salt week, people ate foods with low sodium, purchased and given to them by dietitians. The goal was only 500 milligrams of salt a day, a dramatic drop.
The drop in blood pressure while on the low-sodium diet was quick and dramatic, according to the study. Compared to the high-sodium diet, blood pressure on the extremely low-salt diet dropped 8 millimeters of mercury.
“Compared to their normal diet, people reduced their blood pressure by about 6 millimeters of mercury, about the same effect you’d see for a first-line blood pressure medication,” Allen said.
“In addition, that drop happened pretty quickly and was consistent for people with normal blood pressure, slightly high blood pressure or those already on medications.”
Cutting this amount of salt didn’t have any significant side effects, Allen said, unless you count adjusting to a blander diet.
“When you go from a high-salt diet to a low-salt diet, everything tastes bland,” she said. “I want to encourage people to stick with it because your taste buds do adjust within a couple of weeks or so, and you really do get taste and flavor back and normal things will taste very salty.
“Taste bud adjustment takes a little bit longer, but the blood pressure improvements are pretty quick,” she added.
Blood pressure medications, however, can have many side effects, including cough, constipation or diarrhea, dizziness, lack of energy, headache, muscle pain, nausea, nervousness, fatigue, weight gain or loss, and erection issues. Typically, these ease over time, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Overcoming cravings for salt
Putting down the saltshaker is a good start, “but that’s not where most people get their salt,” Freeman said.
“It’s in foods you’d not expect to have a lot of salt: A couple of slices of bread could have 400 or 500 milligrams of salt; a pickle has a full day’s worth of salt; and a bowl of soup could have several days’ worth of salt in it,” he said.
But careful shopping can accomplish the task, Allen said. Dietitians purchased the low-sodium diets provided in the study after reading labels at local grocery stores, Allen said.
CNN looked at the low-salt menu and found most breakfasts included store-bought quick oats, Greek yogurt and grapes, while lunch featured grilled chicken, lettuces dressed with oil and vinegar, and low-salt versions of lentil soup, breads, peanut butter and tortilla chips. Dinners included ready-to-eat brown rice and veggies, burritos and lasagna.
“They were the low-salt versions of vegetable lasagna,” Allen said. “They were apples and bananas and things everyone could get at the grocery store. They were not specially prepared by a chef.”
The award-winning DASH diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, is an expert-approved method of lowering salt intake. DASH has a simple premise: Eat more veggies, fruits and low-fat dairy foods; limit foods high in saturated fat; and limit your sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams a day, just as this study did.
The DASH meal plan includes four to six servings of vegetables and another four to six servings of fruit, three servings of whole-grain products, two to four servings of fat-free or low-fat dairy products, and several servings each of lean meats and nuts, seeds and legumes each day.
Regardless of which diet plan chosen, those who want to cut salt are better off making their own foods at home, where they can read labels and calculate sodium levels, Freeman said.
Eating at a restaurant, even if it’s healthy, could be troublesome.
“Take a vegetable dish at a restaurant: Those green beans may have been prepared with salted butter with salted crispy onions or whatever on top. Before long you’ve had a huge salt load that was never intended,” Freeman said. “The best way to eat is to eat as unprocessed as possible.”
注释：
coprincipal: n
表示"共同正犯"，means "joint principal"，如：That is, after the acts in accordance with the contents of awareness of factors to determine the scope of the establishment of coprincipal offender. 即根据后行为人认识因素的内容来确定其成立共同正犯的范围。
concurrent: adj
表示" 同时发生的"，means "occurring or operating at the same time"，如：You can't attend two concurrent events! 你不能同时参加两项活动！
alternate: v
表示" 交替；轮流"，means " (of two things) happening by turns"，如：One should alternate work and relaxation.工作和休息应交替进行。
bouillon: n
表示" 牛肉汤；肉汤"，means "a clear seasoned broth"，如：He treated himself to a cup of bouillon from a restaurant nearby. 他在附近的一家餐馆里喝了一杯牛肉清汤。
bland: adj
表示" 温和的；不油腻的；"，means " showing no strong feelings or opinions or other noticeable qualities, especially so as to avoid causing trouble or giving offence"，如：He said this with his face expanding in a bland smile. 他这样说着，脸上绽开了温和的笑容。
constipation: n
表示" 便秘"，means "irregular and infrequent or difficult evacuation of the bowels; can be a symptom of intestinal obstruction or diverticulitis"，如：He was bothered with constipation. 他害便秘。
erection: n
表示" 直立；建造；建筑物"，means "the act of building or putting up; a structure that has been erected"，如：The erection of the building took several months. 建造这座建筑物花了好几个月时间。
lentil: n
表示" 扁豆"，means "round flat seed of the lentil plant used for foo"，如：Guards brought us s large plate of rice smothered with a lentil stew. 卫兵给我们端来一大盘子扁豆焖饭。
Tortilla: n
表示" (墨西哥)玉米粉薄烙饼"，means "thin unleavened pancake made from cornmeal or wheat flour"，如：It’s great with tortilla chips. 配合玉米薄饼吃,非常美味。
burrito: n
表示"玉米煎饼"，means "a flour tortilla folded around a filling"，如：A lamp is on and he is awake, lying in his sleeping bag, eating a burrito. 里面开着一盏灯，他还醒着，躺在睡袋里吃墨西哥玉米煎饼。
legume: n
表示" 豆类；豆荚"，means "the seedpod of a leguminous plant (such as peas or beans or lentils)"，如：The legume has been considered lucky among Southerners ever since. 豆荚一直被南方人视为幸运的食物。
中文简要说明：
最新美国研究发现，每天减少摄取1茶匙的盐，不论是高血压患者或一般人，都有助于降低血压，效果甚至和服用血压药一样好。
美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）报导，美国西北大学（Northwestern University）、范德比大学医学中心（Vanderbilt University Medical Center）等学者组成的团队，一项针对盐巴摄取量与血压的研究，11日获《美国医学会》（JAMA）期刊刊登。
团队对213名50岁至75岁的长者进行实验，25％的受试者血压正常，25％患有高血压，但没有进行治疗，20％受试者的血压获得控制，31％的血压不受控制。
研究人员先让受试者进行一周的高钠饮食，之后再进行一周的低钠饮食。高钠饮食当周，受试者吃平常会吃的食物，但是再额外加2包高汤块，每包高汤块含有1100毫克的钠含量。低钠周期间，受试者食用由营养师调配的低钠食物，每天只摄取500毫克的盐巴。
研究结果显示，低钠饮食期间，受试者血压下降迅速且显著，另外和高钠饮食相比，极低盐饮食受试者的血压降了8毫米汞柱（mmHg）。参与这项研究的西北大学预防医学教授艾伦（Norrina Allen）表示：「和他们的一般饮食相比，受试者的血压降了6毫米汞柱，效果和第一线的血压药差不多。」
她说：「除此之外，血压降得非常快，对血压正常、有轻微高血压，甚至是已经在服药的患者来说，效果都一致。」
艾伦也表示，这是第一份呈现已经在使用血压药物的患者，甚至能藉由限制钠摄取量来降低血压，她说整体而言研究发现，不论使用何种药物，降低饮食中的钠含量，约70-75％的人，血压可能会下降。
她说降低钠摄取量并不会有明显副作用，鼓励民众减少摄取，尤其味蕾几周内就能适应，相较之下，血压改善的速度更快。
一茶匙盐巴相当于2300毫克，美国心脏学会（American Heart Association）建议，民众每天应摄取低于1500毫克的钠。
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