Updated: 25-07-2025
Salt is the main and basic ingredient to make food delicious.
Salt plays a vital role in almost all the main course dishes worldwide.
But eating too much salt beyond the limit every day has a major impact on the body.
Learn how salt causes high blood pressure and how it affects the major parts of the body.
How Salt Affects Your Body: Does Salt Cause High Blood Pressure
Salt quantity per day has a direct effect on the body.
Salt makes a body hold water. If excess salt is eaten, it holds extra water in the body, which increases blood pressure.
Does salt cause high blood pressure and affect your body?
Eating salt will bring more taste to the food, and we are likely to eat more.
Here is the list of the most affected parts due to excess salt consumption:
1. Kidney:
The kidney filters blood to remove unwanted fluids from the body.
It also removes an extra fluid and sends it to the bladder, which further removes it in the form of urine.
This process uses osmosis, which helps in filtering extra water from the blood using the delicate and proper balance of sodium and potassium.
Eating excess salt will raise the sodium levels in the body, which unbalances the osmosis process in the kidneys.
This directly affects the blood circulation and also increases hypertension and high blood pressure.
Excess salt will further damage kidney functionality and cause various severe kidney diseases.
Also Read: Daily Salt Intake
2. Arteries:
By eating too much salt, the blood pressure increases, and it puts pressure on the arteries.
To cope with the strain, the tiny muscles present inside the artery walls become thicker and stronger, which leads to a reduction in the wall space.
When there is an increase in blood pressure for many years, slowly the arteries lose control over blood pressure, and it bursts inside the body or the walls.
Many become so close that it clogs the blood circulation and stops the functionality.
3. Heart:
As the arteries are initially affected by high salt content, these arteries directly affect the heart by lowering the amount of blood reaching the heart valves.
This leads to a sharp pain in the heart, which is known as angina.
When the arteries are blocked, the heart doesn’t get enough blood supply.
Hence, the heart stops pumping blood, leading to many heart diseases, according to the best cardiologists in Hyderabad and around the world.
4. Brain:
As the heart is affected due to artery damage, in the same way, the brain also gets affected due to a lesser amount of blood supply to the brain.
This slowly leads to dementia, also known as vascular dementia.
Slowly, brain cells stop functioning properly as the amounts of oxygen and nutrients are reduced due to high blood pressure.
This results in brain death, which may further kill the person.
If these are not treated at the right time, they may form into a life-threatening disease.
Many of the best doctors claim that eating a low-sodium, healthy diet is the best solution.
Best way to control high blood pressure:
The best way to control high blood pressure and hypertension is by following the below-listed natural ways:
- Start with a low-sodium diet.
- Follow a proper, healthy diet.
- Keep control over the salt content in the food.
- Eat at the proper time and do not skip any of the meals.
- Stop the excess eating of outside, junk, stored foods, etc.
- Decrease or avoid the consumption of alcohol and smoking.
- Choose fresh fruit and vegetable juices instead of cool drinks and other soft drinks.
- Get regular check-ups and follow the routine medication.
- If you observe any unease in your body, check with doctors; we provide online doctor assistance, too.
Statistics about Salt on Health:
- According to one study, about 50-70 million people in the USA are affected by hypertension due to excess salt consumption. The only solution for hypertension is to start a low-sodium diet.
- According to the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, the impact on health due to salt intake is very high. The more salt you eat, the more you are affected by many health problems.
- Many scientists state that to lead a healthy life, one must control the salt intake and look at their diet plans by keeping taste aside.
Ever Wonder! How much sodium can you eat per day?
Here is the list of the major health organisations’ recommendations about the limit of sodium content per day:
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA): 2300 mg.
- American Heart Association (AHA): 1500 mg (2).
- Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND): 1500 to 2300 mg.
- American Diabetes Association (ADA): 1500 to 2300 mg.
Hope you got the best solution for “Does salt cause high blood pressure?”
Share this with your loved ones to protect them from various health issues and help them live a happy and peaceful life.
Disease-Free Life! Happy Life!
Author’s Bio: Ashreetha Pendkar is a healthcare writer, trainer, and digital marketing expert. She loves to read healthcare content and spread her words about the importance of health to near & dear ones.
