Why you Too Need a Low Salt Diet
In this Article
A low or salt less diet has far more advantages than disadvantages, primary among them being reduced risk of diseases caused by high blood pressure. What’s more, your body requires only a small amount of salt every day in order to function optimally.
Salt or sodium chloride is essential in our diet as it helps muscles to function, regulates water content in the body and activates the brain, not to forget makes food tastier! However, too much of it can have adverse affects on your wellness.
Reasons to Go on a Low Salt Diet
1. To Regulate Your Blood Pressure
When you eat too much salt, it leads to your body retaining excess water to wash out it out which in turn causes blood pressure to rise. When your blood pressure climbs too high, it causes damage to the heart, kidney and brain. It also leads to ailments like stroke, coronary heart disease and vascular dementia. People with high BP are often told to go on a low salt or salt less diet to keep the pressure from spiking up.
2. To Prevent Osteoporosis
Excess salt in your blood stream erodes calcium from the bones and flushes it out through urine, thereby thinning the bones and making them low in density. Though older people are more at risk of osteoporosis since bones thin naturally with age, a high salt diet can cause them to become brittle in women of all ages.
3. To Lower The Risk of Obesity
A high level of salt in the body makes one thirsty and this thirst is oft times quenched by drinking soft drinks and other sugary fluids, thus causing weight gain. A sodium restricted diet for weight loss is one of the first recommendations for people suffering from obesity.
4. To Reduce The Formation of Kidney Stones
A high salt diet disrupts kidney function, sometimes leading to kidney disease. Salt also hastens the progress of existing kidney disease. Women with a strong family history of kidney problems are advised to start cutting down on salt early on. Reducing salt intake should be the first and foremost step you take towards reducing your risk of kidney stone, and towards a healthier diet after 40.
5. Prevention is Better Than Cure
Rather than suffer the effects of too much salt, practice how to cut down on salt intake to prevent the occurrence of ailments. Drink plenty of fluids to flush excess salt. Avoid adding extra salt to dishes and choose seasoning that has low or no salt.
Give yourself some time to reduce your salt intake. Once you start eating salt free foods, or food with less salt, it can take about six-eight weeks for your body and your taste buds to get accustomed to the new diet. But keep at it and say hello to a healthier you very soon!
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