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Don’t eat too much salt, you are risking your heart

If staying healthy is your top priority then reduce salt in your diet

Written by Shriya Sinha | Published : February 20, 2019 6:33 PM IST

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Salt

The amount of salt you eat has a direct impact in your health. Your blood pressure rise, your body starts to hold or retain water. The more salt you consume the more water gets stored in your body that directly raises your blood pressure. High blood pressure exerts high strain on your heart, arteries, kidneys and brain, simply increasing the risk of developing heart attacks, strokes, dementia and kidney disease. It also reduces the effect of blood pressure controlling medicines. Here are a few other ways in which your body reacts when you cut back on salt.

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Weight Reduction

You lose weight: Salt is used to prepare processed food. When you make efforts in cutting back salt, you make informed choices of carefully avoiding these processed foods which use salt as preservatives and thus are able to eat healthier. A shift to unprocessed foods helps to naturally cut back on your sodium, sugar intake and increase the consumption of fibre. This will greatly decrease your calorie intake and help in reducing weight.  Also Read - President Murmu Launches India’s First 'Home-Grown Gene Therapy' For Cancer at IIT Bombay

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Bathrrom

Your bathroom trips will reduce: A high salt intake results in dehydration and can increase your thirst. High sodium diets clubbed with additional fluid intake results in pulling water out of other cells and result in dehydration. Therefore, reducing your sodium intake can keep your fluid levels under control and considerably reduce the bathroom breaks.

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Water-weight

You lose water weight: Extra sodium causes your body to store water. Extra sodium throws the required level of electrolytes in your kidney out of balance. As a result, your kidneys retain more water to restore this balance. Reducing sodium thus helps to reduce our bloating and bodyweight by reducing this water weight.