Excess Salt, Bad For health

Excessive intake of cooking salt has been identified as a major cuase of heart and kidney disease.

A medical practitioner in Port Harcourt, Dr Stanley Chukwu, who made the disclosure said high-salt intake leads  to increase in the high blood pressure, “commonly known as high blood pressure”.

Dr Chukwu, who spoke in an exclusive chat with The Tide, said, that eating too much salt often leads to increased levels of calcium  in the urine, thereby  increasing the risks of the formation of  kidney stone in the body, explaining that “these are a type of stone resulting from having extreme levels of calcium, oxalate or urate in the urine.

Furthermore, he noted that table salt contains sodium and chloride,  adding  that high dietary salt and sodium, found mostly in  processed or packaged foods and cooking ingredients such as baking powder and monosodium glutamate, are not healthy for bones, especially in women.

According to him, eating too much sodium can decrease the density of the bones, making them fragile or weak.  He observed that though the body needs calcium for strong bones, therefore eating  too much salt, causes a lot of calcium to be lost during urination.

He further explained that the body also needs sodium to retain  water in the blood vessels. This, he said helps to  regulate the water balance in the body, pointing out however that if too much water is retained in the body, the volume of blood increases, making the heart pump faster, resulting high blood pressure .

“As in simple osmosis in secondary school Biology, sodium in salt draws water to itself, thus increasing the volume of blood the heart would have to pump out, this extra work the heart does, is the basis of hypertension” he added.

“A reduction in the amount of dietary salt decreases any chance s of developing cardiovascular disease”, he emphasised and warned that salt also causes the thickening of the blood vessels, which supply blood to the kidney and makes it narrow. “Any organ that does not get blood gets injured, which worsens over time leading to kidney failure”.

He advised that a reduction in and the right amount of salt in-take would save a lot of persons from cardiovascular and kidney diseases, saying that the right amount is about a teaspoon of salt, which contains 2,000 mg of sodium.

He also advised that a change of life style and the consumption of fresh foods rather than processed foods would help reduce salt build up in the body, therefore minimise health risks.

Tonye Nria-Dappa