New guidelines: Less salt, lower blood pressure

MINNEAPOLIS -- Too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure, which can then lead to heart problems.

So, for the first time, the government's new dietary guidelines recommend that people 51 and older and those with high blood pressure and eat no more than a half-teaspoon of salt a day.

Salt retains fluid, so the more salt in your system, the higher your blood volume. More blood means your heart works harder to pump it and that increases pressure.

Dr. Elizabeth Grey, a cardiologist with the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern, said a half-teaspoon isn't much salt, about 1,000 milligrams.  One frozen dinner can have 600 milligrams.

Grey said, "It means packaged foods are almost out it means you have to prepare and cook for yourself the old fashioned way and that's really the healthy way."

For the rest of us just one teaspoon of salt is recommended.  But Grey said most of us get 5 times that, so many of us are putting ourselves at risk of raising our blood pressure numbers.

But just what do those blood pressure numbers mean?

Grey explained it this way. She said, "The systolic is the top number and that's the pressure in the arteries when the heart contracts with the pulse.  And the diastolic is the bottom number and that's the pressure when the heart is filling and not pumping."

Ideally you want your blood pressure lower than 120 over 80 or lower.  If it's not, you put yourself at risk of heart attack or stroke.

Grey said, "By the time Americans reach age 60 more than half of us are hypertensive."  She also said that someone who has normal blood pressure at age 50 still has a 90% lifetime risk of high blood pressure.

It can be caused by genetics, but obesity and inactivity are big culprits as is too much salt.

And high blood pressure has no obvious symptoms.  That's why its important to monitor it.

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