Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hi, brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bomb here. Salt, the word itself makes our salivary gland standard attention, and our taste buds burst to life. But what's in a word in salts case, it's sodium and six chloride. Common table salt, also known as halite, from the only family of rocks commonly eaten by humans etymologically derived from salice, the Roman goddess of health and well being. Salt by any other name would be just
as irresistibly delicious. We spoke with Sharon H. Bergquist, m d, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Emery University School of Medicine. They said, we are hardwired to crave salt. In ancestral times, the availability of this essential mineral was scarce. To motivate us to seek salt, our bodies became designed to get reward and pleasure from it. From pikeant pizzas and pasta sauces, sliferous soups, pungent meats and fizzy sodas, to popcorn, chips
and nuts. We love our salting, nausches and beverages. The bad news is that these snacky processed foods which make up the bulk of the average American diet, are packed with excess salt, and it's shaking up our health. As burg Quist explained, the sodium it's salt causes most of the damage in our organs. When faced with excess salt, our kidneys try to excrete as much as possible. Some sodium, however, accumulates the body holds onto water to dilute the sodium.
This increases the volume of blood and pressure on blood vessels. The resulting high blood pressure can damage many organs, including the heart, kidneys, and brain. Sodium is a vital electrolyte.
Electrolytes are not what plants crave, but rather minerals dissolved in the body's fluids to help balance our cells and regulate bodily functions like hydration signals to and from the brain, blood pressure, and the proper functioning of our nerves and muscles, especially our most important and hardest working muscle, the heart. Too much sodium can lead to hypertension or high blood pressure. Not enough sodium can lead to hypernutrema, which can salt.
In Shock asked which is more of a health risk. A diet too low or too high end sodium. Burg Quist replied. While a few studies have raised concern that a very low sodium diet may be harmful in certain sick groups of people, the bigger problem is that we are consuming too much salt. The current average consumption of thirty four hundred milligrams a day roughly one point five teaspoons, raises blood pressure, which can increase the risk of heart
attacks and stroke. So just how much salt is necessary to survive? Is there a minimum and a maximum amount? Burg Quist said, we can't live without salt. We need a minimum amount for our nerves and muscles to function and to maintain our fluid balance. There isn't a clear minimum, but it's likely around two hundred milligrams, which is many
fold below the average daily intake. The CDC suggests consuming no more than twenty milligrams of sodium per day, and the American Heart Association recommends an ideal limit of no more than fifteen hundred milligrams per day. Burg Quist said, of the salt we eat comes from processed food, so reducing or avoiding processed and fast food is a good place to start for lowering sodium intake. And given these numbers.
People with hypertension will be heartened to know that it is possible to lower blood pressure by consuming less salt. To that end, burg Quist reveals that results from the dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH trials, were foundational in linking lower sodium intake with lower blood pressure. The first part of the DASH trial found that a diet emphasizing fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy foods, and limited red meat, saturated fats and sweets, called the DASH diet, lowered blood
pressure compared to the standard American diet. The second trial looked at three levels of sodium intake, high, medium, or low in people who follow the DASH diet or the standard American diet. It concluded that the less sodium a person consumes, the lower their blood pressure. The recommendation is that we eat more whole foods like fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, nuts,
and seeds. Burg Quist said, not only are they naturally low and sodium, but they're high and potassium, which opposes the effect of sodium by relaxing blood vessels and lowering blood pressure. As for runners and others who work up a healthy sweat exercising burg Quist recommends Electrolite, Laddin sports drinks, and foods instead of salt pills. It'll take a lot of self discipline and likely a period of moody withdrawal before we're able to give that briny siren sodium the
final shake. But for the sake of our health, we owe it to ourselves to try just take it, one snack at a time. Today's episode was written by Carrie Tato and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other savory topics, visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com.