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Comment by grwthckrmstr | Hacker News Reader

My dad got diagnosed with high blood pressure when he was 30.

For the past 26 years, our family has maintained a low-salt, low-oil diet. There is regular exercise and walking. Low consumption of alcohol and also junk/saturated fatty food, meditation and breathing exercises.

I'm damn proud of my dad and the way he's maintained his blood pressure problem throughout his life. As a by product, the entire family is health conscious. Props to my mom for making sure we always eat well and healthy. It wouldn't be possible without her constant effort.

As a result of growing up in this household, I'm extremely sensitive to salty, oily,and junk food. In the sense that, it doesn't cause a reaction or anything, but I can TASTE the HIGH amount of salt and oils in All the food that's served around me, and I see people gobbling it up without even realising.

Lifestyle diseases.

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The lifestyle diseases are apparently not related to oils, and for 80% of the population, salt either (someone posted links earlier).

The culprit appears to be the combination of carbs and fat; there are cultures who have lived on mostly carbs which are healthy, and some who have lived on mostly fat that are; but the combination is lethal.

Also, salt is often demonized unfairly (though in your case, it might be right - sodium sensitivity is mostly genetic). Too little sodium is more dangerous than too much for most people. Keto flu is a flu-like condition often accompanied by rash that is a result of dropping carbs without increasing sodium+potassium+magnesium intake, with salt likely playing the largest part.

I am now increasing my salt intake gradually, after having essentially no salt for the last 40 years (grew up in a salty household but didn’t like the taste). It is hard but I am sleeping better, having less muscle cramps, and losing more weight than with the same diet before increasing salt. YMMV.

Salt does not cause the disease, but regulating salt is how you regulate high blood pressure when you have it (which his dad has). Yep, muscle cramps are side effect.

People with high pressure measure it often, so they eventually get idea on what works.

What is "essentially no salt"? Considering that the AHA's daily target is 1,500mg, or only 3/4 tsp, were you even far below that?

I have a relative who's a kidney patient and who only recently realised her blood pressure was getting too high- it was up to 194/112 back in February this year. She only realised when she mentioned having strong headaches during a doctor's appointment.

My relative is in a scientific discipline and she likes collecting data, I guess, so she's been tracking her blood pressure meticulously since then. I helped her to plot it out in R. You can see the resulting diagram below:

http://www.goblinopera.com/hn/dec_17_anon.png

I think anyone who sees this chart cannot fail to notice the big dip in BP in October: from an average of 140/90 from February to September, to 120/75 after October. So far, this has lasted (with a bit of a recent spike, possibly brought on by the inevitable Christmas Binge™).

This dip follows from her decision to control her salt intake, starting around October. She no longer cooks with salt, or salt her food, she eats very little cheese and generally stays away from food she hasn't prepared herself and can't control the salt content of.

So this is the message I keep from this chart: salt intake can really affect blood pressure.

Obviously, that's a single case and it's hard to generalise- but on the other hand it's impossible to deny that a specific intervention (controlling salt intake) was taken in the hopes of having a desired effect (lowering BP) and that the expected effect directly followed the intervention.

There were confounding factors, to be sure. I've marked various medication milestones in the chart (anonymised, to protect her privacy). My relative was suspicious that "Drug 1" was affecting her blood pressure and the chart has helped convince her doctors that she should stop taking it (see the big spike after "Drug 1" is taken at the end of May). She is now taking an alternative ("Drug 3"). My relative also lost some weight between February and September and that definitely contributed.

However, the fact remains that she was able to lower her blood pressure to the levels considered safe for kidney patients (those are lower than in the general population) only when she started controlling her salt intake.

Given that kidneys are responsible for filtering excess electrolytes out of the bloodstream it makes sense to me. A person with compromised kidney function may need to limit intake to a level that the kidneys can handle. This doesn't necessarily mean that a person with healthy kidneys needs to limit intake.

Of course. But high blood pressure can damage the kidneys, which can in turn raise blood pressure further- so if blood pressure is high then it's probably a good idea to start lowering one's salt intake, anyway.

My relative has been complaining that she was not made aware of the detrimental effect that high blood pressure has on the kidneys, and how salt affects this, even after multiple visits to a nephrologist. She could probably have avoided those crazy high values at the start of the graph if she was aware.

I was not aware of the connection either and I believe many people are also oblivious to it, so it's probably a good idea overall to highlight it.

Yes and no. You overstate the risks. I consume almost no sugar, because I have no taste for it, but I consume prodigious quantities of salt at levels far higher than the average American. My blood pressure is perfect, naturally. Those are my family genetics; we don’t eat sugar, and salt is utterly harmless to us. I realize what I am eating.

There is a lot to be said for a healthy diet, I agree with that. I am a fish/chicken and veggies guy myself, so my diet tends toward healthy anyway. But that reflects personal preferences, I don’t conflate it with a moral position. And anecdotes aren’t the same as science. The basis for being judgmental is less than most believe.

>> I'm damn proud of my dad and the way he's maintained his blood pressure problem throughout his life. As a by product, the entire family is health conscious. Props to my mom for making sure we always eat well and healthy. It wouldn't be possible without her constant effort.

And props to all of your family for having the patience to follow your dad's low-salt regime. From my personal experience with a family member that has problem with her blood pressure, it's hard to convince healthy people to eat less salt, even to help a relative.

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