Recent diet studies, such as the DASH diet study, have established that blood pressure is lowered when  sodium (salt or sodium chloride) is reduced in the diet. Most people will benefit by reducing salt in their diets: the positive blood pressure lowering effect of reducing salt or sodium in the diet effects both men and women and all the ethnic groups in these studies.

Do you know what your blood pressure is? An optimal blood pressure has been identified as a systolic of less than 120 (in mm Hg) and diastolic less then 80 (in mm Hg), typically written as 120/80. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is identified as a systolic of  140 or greater OR  a diastolic of 90 or greater.

Remember from earlier newsletters that being overweight is a definite risk for high blood pressure, but the good news is that losing the first 10-15 pounds has the greatest effect upon risk factors like high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high blood cholesterol. 

Losing weight and shaking the salt habit is a very smart move!

A Sea of Salt
A typical person who is not watching their salt intake consumes about 5,000 mg/day. That's about 2 teaspoons of salt per day, and is about twice what is considered healthy! Of course, most people aren't shaking that much salt on their food - about half of it is already in the foods we eat. Here's where it gets tough. It's a pretty safe bet that if you eat in restaurants or eat packaged foods that you're getting way more sodium than is needed, without adding any at the table! It's pretty hard to get the sodium of restaurant and fast food meals - it's out of your control, but there is quite a bit that can be done with convenience foods purchased at the grocery store.  

Here are some shopping tips you can use  to help you lower your sodium:   
1. Take the time to read labels of convenience or packaged meals that you buy regularly for salt content. Remember that a reasonable goal is to keep your total sodium intake to less than 3,000 mg/day, (lower for some people depending upon health issues).