Physical activity may help to prevent blood pressure from elevating after people consume very high amounts of salt.

Researchers from China and the US studied over 1,900 Chinese adults (with an average age of 38) with a family history of prehypertension or stage 1 hypertension (blood pressure between 140/90 and 159/99 mmHg). The participants then followed two different diets for a week each, one of them containing 3,000 milligrams of salt daily, and the other containing a huge 18,000 milligrams per day.

A rise in blood pressure of 5 per cent or more when moving from the lower to higher salt diets marked a participant as ‘salt sensitive’ to researchers. When comparing this data with the information provided in questionnaires, the team found that those who were less sensitive to salt were also more likely to take part in higher levels of physical activity.

Those who exercised most were found to be 38 per cent less likely to be salt sensitive than study subjects who got the least amount of physical activity.

Responding to the study authors’ speculation that the findings could point to a need for sedentary people to eat a low-salt diet, A. Marc Gillinov, MD, a staff cardiac surgeon at the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, said it would be best for sedentary people to also start exercising; ‘These are two things that affect blood pressure, salt intake and exercise, and for your health and for your heart, do your best on both fronts’.

Source: WebMD Health News