Low Salt Intake Has No Impact on Blood Pressure in Teens
Low Salt Intake Has No Impact on Blood Pressure in Teens – A new study found that a low-sodium diet doesn’t have much of an effect on blood pressure in teenagers, but a high-potassium diet can prevent high blood pressure in adulthood.
According to the current dietary guidelines for Americans, salt intake should be less than 2,300 milligrams a day for healthy individuals aged 2 to 50. There have been few studies on dietary sodium intake among children and teens and its effect on their blood pressure, so researchers from Boston University School of Medicine looked at the long-term effects of both sodium and potassium consumption on blood pressure among teens.
For the study, lead author Lynn L. Moore and her team used data from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s Growth and Health Study on 2,185 black and white girls (ages 9 to 10) who were tracked for 10 years. Higher sodium intake of over 3,000 but less than 4,000 milligrams a day did not have any adverse effects on the their blood pressure.
In fact, researchers found that girls who consumed more than 3,500 mg of salt had generally lower diastolic blood pressures than girls who consumed less than 2,500 mg per day. Overall, participants who consumed the highest levels of potassium (2,400 mg per day or more) had lower levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressure than those who didn’t, at the end of the study period. According to the results of the study, Moore said that potassium seems to be more important in determining blood pressure than sodium, and hence, we need to focus on increasing potassium intake rather than decreasing sodium intake.
Category: News
