Decrease Your Salt Intake to Improve Your Gut

An excessive amount of salt intake in your diet could cause hypertension, or what is commonly known as high blood pressure. For this reason, you should reduce sodium intake because hypertension is one of the leading causes of death in the US. More than that, studies show that decreasing salt intake is good to improve your gut microbiome too. 

Reduced sodium intake increased gut bacteria

The American Heart Association recommends that adults should limit their sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams per day. The researchers found that when their female subjects consumed near the RDA for sodium for six weeks, they had an increased level of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA). It indicates that a more healthy microbiome is circulating in their blood. 

The gut microbiota is bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa found in the gastrointestinal tract. They help digest the food that we eat and helps keep our immune system healthy. They also affect the predisposition to gain weight. 

A wide range of diseases is associated with problems with the microbiome. They include cancer, gastrointestinal issues, and allergies. 

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Gut Microbiome affects blood pressure

Dr. Haidong Zhu said that the microbiome affects the way our body regulates blood pressure. It means that the average American high-salt diet could interfere with a healthy direction. 

Read also: Whole-Fat Dairy: Lowers Risk of Diabetes and High Blood Pressure

At Augusta University, Dr. Haidong Zhu is a molecular geneticist at the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Georgia. He is also the study's corresponding author. 

Dr. Zhu's team believes that they are the first to study the link between high sodium intake and the gut microbiome. He said that other studies focused on the link in animal models. They found very little evidence with human data. He also said that they are trying to understand the mechanisms involved in the process. 

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A small reduction in salt intake could decrease blood pressure

They studied the SCFAs of a mix of black and white Asians, both sexes, with ages ranging from 30 to 70. All of their subjects have untreated high blood pressure and were all enrolled in a previous study at the Queen Mary University of London. 

Read also: 7 Ways to Lower Blood Pressure

They instructed all of the subjects to take lower than 2,000 milligrams of sodium a day for two weeks. They found that there was an increase in all the eight SCFAs. All of them had a decrease in their blood pressure and increased flexibility in blood vessels. 

Researchers found that the decrease in blood pressure was more dramatic in females. Dr. Zhu said that they still have to find out the reason. It could be that male and female pathways are different, he added. 

In the future, the researchers want to do a more extensive study that would include fecal samples. They plan to assess the content of the gut microbiome and health directly. They also want to see result reasons for sex differences.