Sodium: Why does excess cause blood pressure?

If you have a history of blood pressure, one of the first things you are asked to do is reduce salt. More precisely sodium.

But what exactly is the role of sodium in blood pressure?

To understand, we need a little backstory. Your body has approximately five litres of blood pumping through approximately one hundred thousand miles of arteries and veins.

Your arteries are lined internally with a thin layer of skin known as the endothelial cell.

These cells produce something known as nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide plays the role of making your arteries flexible. Allowing your arteries to expand and contract to allow variable amounts of blood to flow, depending on the need.

Excess sodium inhibits the release of nitric oxide. When this occurs repeatedly, the force of the blood flowing makes your arteries stiff.

Your blood pressure rises.

The endothelial skin is a soft, jelly-like coating that covers the inside surface of your blood vessels. It is made of sugars and proteins that carry a negative electrical charge.

The effect is to act like a protective sponge, controlling how much sodium can touch the blood vessel wall.

When there’s too much sodium in your blood or around your cells, this protective layer starts to break down.

As the layer gets thinner or damaged, sodium can reach the vessel wall more easily.

This reduces the vessel’s protection, making it leakier, more likely to stick to white blood cells, and more likely to send out inflammatory signals. Inflammatory signals turns on your stress hormones further reducing nitric oxide.

So what can you do?

We are not talking about a single meal or even a week long exposure to high sodium.

We are talking about chronic over consumption.

But unfortunately, many of us are consuming too much sodium for prolonged periods of time.

Your endothelial cells renew all the time. You get new ones every four odd days. So if you stop the excess, your arteries will recover, even if not a hundred percent.

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain

Disclaimer: all consult a doctor or medical expert before changing your lifestyle.