Go easy on that salt

By Joyce Nyakato

When Irene Nanjaba was diagnosed with high blood pressure, she was afraid, because she had lost a number of relatives to strokes and heart failures.

Nanjaba was given a list of foods that she was not supposed to take. She is constantly trying to lose weight through exercises because it is the best way to manage her blood pressure. She was also advised to reduce her salt intake.

Recently, World Health Organisation (WHO) released new guidelines relating to salt. According to the press statement that was released on January 31, adults need to only consume less than 2g of sodium, or 5g of salt, and at least 3.5g of potassium.

These guidelines were meant to serve as an important benchmark for policy-makers to address non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, which are on a rapid rise.

So, what is the connection between salt and noncommunicable diseases?

Issue at hand

According to Pearl Ainembabazi, a nutritionist with Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG), the salt we consume is referred to a sodium chloride, a compound of two minerals sodium and chlorine mineral salts.

Sodium and potassium are the commonest of salts because they work together.

Salt is one of the oldest, most pervasive food seasonings and an important method of food preservation. Therefore, it is likely to be an ingredient in processed foods and we consume much of it.

Importance of salt

Salt keeps blood at a neutral PH or non-acid state. It is important for the nervous function. It also keeps the body dehydrated enough to balance the body pressure.

“We need all of them, but in particular quantities,” she says.

The revelation from the recent WHO statement is that most people consume too much sodium. Apart from daily table salt we consume, sodium is also found in a variety of foods including milk, eggs, bread and processed meat like bacon.

Bacon and popcorn alone each contain 1.5gm of sodium against the recommended 2gm. So, if you combine this with the processed foods, the salt itself and all other natural foods rich in sodium, you realise we consume a lot more sodium than we actually need.

On sodium

A person with either elevated sodium levels could be at a risk of raised blood pressure, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, says Dr Francesco Branca, the director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development.

Dr Michael Mungoma, a heart and blood pressure expert at Mulago Hospital explains that a lot of sodium in the body will draw a lot of water, increasing the amount of fluid in the blood.

Too much fluid in blood definitely increases the pressure of blood flow, causing hypertension. He explains that the body removes unwanted fluid from the body by kidneys.

After the kidneys have filtered blood, fluid is then put into the bladder to be removed as urine. For the kidneys to draw the extra water out of your blood, they use osmosis.

Osmosis has to use a delicate balance of sodium and potassium minerals to pull the water across a wall of cells from the bloodstream into a channel that leads to the bladder.

A lot of sodium kills this balance reducing the ability of your kidneys to remove the fluid from the blood.

“The extra water also increases blood volume in the body and that requires your heart to work harder to circulate the blood,” he says.

The result is higher blood pressure due to the extra fluid in the blood and extra strain on the delicate blood vessels leading to the kidneys. Over time, this extra strain can also damage the kidneys.

This further reduces their ability to filter out fluid, salts and toxins adequately on a regular basis.

Therefore, managing your blood pressure is an important part of prolonging the health of your kidneys.

An already diseased kidney cannot filter the excess sodium and potassium adequately out of the blood, which is dangerous.

Sodium continues to draw more fluid in the blood, creating more danger eventually leading to swelling. Excess potassium build up in the blood leads to abnormal heart contractions.

Potassium is a mineral responsible for muscle contraction and a heart is a muscle.

Safe consumption of salt

There has been a myth that raw salt is more dangerous than cooked one. “Salt is salt, whether raw or cooked. It does not change its composition when cooked,” says Dr Mungoma.

He adds that the reason people may talk against raw salt is to discourage those who have a habit of adding salt to their food.

Salt, comes in different patterns. Some prefer to have consumed the natural rock salt, but the salt we mainly consume is refined salt. However, they still contain Sodium.

Iodized salt is mixed with a mineral called iodine as per ministry regulations at an industrial level.

Iodized salt is used to help reduce the incidence of iodine deficiency in humans. The best alternative to table salt, among those with a risk of hypertension, heart problems and Kidney problems is Losalt which is sold in supermarkets around town.

Losalt evades the risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease associated with a high intake of sodium chloride while maintaining a similar taste.