Is Salt Actually Bad for You?

hello I'm Simon Whistler you're watching the today I found our YouTube channel and in the video today we're looking at the truth about whether there's a link between sodium and high blood pressure let's get started the truth about sodium and blood pressure the debate over eating too much salt has been around since the 1960s almost every major governmental health organization embraces the idea that eating too much salt is damaging to your health most major news outlets report on these recommendations and many people try to follow them this is most likely why most of us especially the elderly with heart problems know to reduce the amount of salt we eat those of us who like the idea that any recommendation be backed up by solid evidence have to step back on this one it turns out there is currently no solid evidence that salt will chronically raise your blood pressure yes none so why of most health organizations pushed the idea of low sodium diets the theory behind their supposition is sound and there are some studies that show a minor risk of elevated blood pressure with extremely high salt intake unfortunately there are many other studies that show no increase and still some that show reducing salt intake might actually raise your blood pressure let's look at the controversy in more detail the idea that salt will increase your blood pressure has to do with osmotic pressure osmosis is the movement of a solvent in this case water across a semipermeable membrane like cell walls from areas of lower solute concentration in this case salt to areas of higher solute concentration this naturally equalizes the solute concentration on both sides of the membrane the osmotic pressure is also why salt can be used to preserve meat so the theory goes that when we need too much salt our blood stream has more sodium in it than the surrounding areas of our body this causes the water in those areas to be pulled into our blood stream the increase in water within the arteries and veins causes an increase in pressure within the arteries and veins the salt itself also acts like an irritant within the arteries causing them to constrict this too is thought to increase your blood pressure the theory seems on the surface very sound after all we can make the process of salt pulling water through membranes happen time and time again in the lab the question is does this actually happen within our bodies and does this actually cause long-term hypertension high blood pressure in 1969 Louis Dahl testified before Senator George McGovern's Select Committee on nutrition and human needs he was concerned about the high concentrations of sodium in baby foods and thought this might cause increase in people's blood pressure long term his reasoning was that studies done on rats showed increases in the blood pressure of the rats the conversation about salt and hypertension began to circulate among Health Organization's the National Institutes of Health in 1972 began introducing high blood pressure education programs as their evidence they pointed out observational e populations who ate very little sodium had low incidence of high blood pressure they also pointed to the rat modelling scientists at the time questioned this as the rat studies had the meeting 60 times what the average person does they also pointed out the populations who ate low sodium diets also ate low amounts of other things like sugar which also effects osmosis despite their objections publicly the idea of high sodium diets causing high blood pressure was here to stay and remains today the Centers for Disease Control the National Institutes of Health the American Heart Association and many other organizations currently promote low sodium diets despite the seemingly unified front presented by these distinguished organizations the controversy among scientists is extremely heated in 1998 award-winning author Taub's published the political science of salt in the Journal of science he stated the controversy over the benefits if any of salt reduction now constitutes one of the longest-running most vitriolic and surreal disputes in all of Medicine one Surgeon General in a report wrote the speed with which the u.s. federal agencies embraced sodium reduction stood in stark contrast to how long it had taken for recommendations to emerge on the importance of reducing blood cholesterol levels he also noted that the difference was even more remarkable considering the absence of published research that actually tested the theory on the flip side Sir Michael Rawlings the chair of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence who promotes salt reduction in diets argued that guidance in policymaking is based on the best available evidence the evidence may not however be very good and is rarely complete not a very strong argument for reducing salt intake let's look at a few relatively recent studies in 2008 Italian researchers began publishing the results from a series of clinical trials all of which reported that among patients with heart failure reducing salt consumption increased the risk of death these studies were followed by others which showed that among type 1 and type 2 diabetics healthy Europeans and patients with chronic heart failure those that ate salt at the lower limit of the normal range were more likely to have heart disease than those who ate salt in the middle range of normal in 2011 2 Cochrane reviews found no evidence that low salt diet either improved or worsened people's health they stated after more than 150 random clinical trials and 13 population studies without any obvious signal in favor of sodium reduction another position could be to accept that such a large signal may not exist even in the face of no clear scientific evidence to support it and some to the contrary in 2010 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the Institute of Medicine and the American Society of hypertension all continue to promote low sodium diets as a means of controlling high blood pressure in the end none of these organizations tell people that the science behind their policies is controversial and they might be flat wrong Ronald Bayer David Merritt Johns and Sandra Galia said it best in their article salt and public health after a careful consideration of the debate over salt we have concluded that the concealment of scientific uncertainty is a mistake that serves neither the ends of science nor good policy so should you go out and smother everything in salt now as with most things if science hasn't been able to answer the question definitively one way or the other and you want to be safe rather than sorry just go with the age-old adage of moderation in everything bonus facts high blood pressure is neither a disease nor an illness in and of itself it's merely a risk factor for other problems for instance if you have chronic high blood pressure your risk of having a heart attack or stroke goes up sniff acun Lee this high blood pressure could be caused by excessive plaque on the inside of your artery walls making those arteries in effect smaller think plumbing when the pipes the transport fluid gets smaller the pressure that same volume of fluid exerts goes up what happens if your blood pressure gets too high I'll answer that question with another one what happens if the water pressure in your house pipes gets too high your pipes burst same thing here should your blood pressure get too high your arteries have a greater chance of bursting if there is too much gunk inside your pipes plaque inside your arteries that ball of gunk could get too big and Cod off your pipes seems they're too mean especially if those arteries are in your brain or heart it's not like the kidneys where you have to you spring a leak in those two organs and your family finally get that big payment from your life insurance policy not really the best way to get paid well unless you're really a jerk and everyone in your family hates you then they might not mind so much but you certainly would bonus fact - blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury for reference 1 psi pounds per square inch is equal to 51 point 7 1 4 9 3 to 6 millimeters of mercury if you were bleeding and wanted to stop the blood loss with direct pressure and you should you would only need to use about 3 psi to stop it unless you have really high blood pressure then maybe 4 psi either way it doesn't take much pressure at all to stop the bleeding bonus fact 3 the first known experiment to measure the exact pressure of blood was performed by Stephen Hales on the 1st of December 17 33 he took a live horse attached a tube to her left Kuril artery then allowed her blood to rush through the tube it rose to a height of 8 foot and 3 inches he noted that when it was at its full height it would rise and fall at and after reach pulse to 3 or 4 inches yes the horse bled out but don't think mister hale's was too cruel he performed the experiment on a horse that was to be put down anyway to the horse I'm sure this distinction didn't matter much of course so I really hope you liked that video and if you did like it click like below and leave us a comment to let us know what you think and also check out a couple of our other videos which are linked to on the screen now and don't forget to subscribe for brand new videos every day for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 310,995

Rating: 4.9018092 out of 5

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, simon whistler, salt, salt facts, Salt Raises BP, Truth About Salt, Sodium And Blood Pressure

Id: XLZOiG4etXo

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2016