It seems like people in the United States eat too much sodium and they might not even know it. It’s in packaged snacks, restaurant food, frozen food, and fast food. And with frozen food, that can have a lot of sodium as well if you’re not careful. Also, sodium can clog the arteries and lead to stroke, hypertension, heart disease, kidney failure, and high blood pressure. The only way to reduce Sodium in your diet is if you regularly prepare your food at home and strategize how you consume sodium outside of the home by keeping count of the sodium you consume.
Here’s why the low sodium diet is worth pursuing:
Reduces the risk of heart disease
Having a low-sodium diet will help reduce your risk of heart disease, improving your quality of life in your old age. Sodium clogs the arteries and makes it difficult for the heart to function which leads to heart disease, so it’s a good idea to eat as less sodium as possible.
Reduces stroke
A low sodium diet will reduce your risk of stroke. And that’s good for your quality of life as well. All the sodium, since it’s like a fluid, builds up in your brain until it blocks the pathways within the brain, thus leading to a stroke. So, that’s why a low sodium diet is good.
Heals your heart from heart disease
Eating less sodium will help you heal from heart disease because your blood will rush out the clogged-up arteries enough to clear them, as long as you stay on a low-sodium diet.
Heals you from stroke
The arteries in your brain will flush the clogged-up arteries to clear them if you eat a low-sodium diet. The sodium does put pressure on your blood, whether it is in your brain, kidney, or heart, wherever there’s an artery, it will cause trouble for you.
Lowers High blood pressure
Lowering the blood pressure would leave less strain on the blood vessels and less strain on your kidney’s filtering process, less strain on your pumping heart, and less strain on the functions of your brain in order to prevent kidney disease, Heart Disease, or Stroke. Also, your brain helps you move, think, and keeps your organs alive so having a stroke can be very damaging to those areas in your body.
Prevents kidney failure and hypertension
Sodium can clog the arteries, and they can lead to strain on the blood pressure, causing the whole system of the kidney cleaning toxins out of the water to fail and that will cause the kidney to fail in response.
And it all goes back to how the sodium blocks the arteries of the brain. If you reduce your sodium intake, you also reduce your risk of hypertension and its resulting brain damage. If you don’t, then brain damage can probably cause damage to your ability to control a limb, the ability to control the muscles on your face, or it might damage your cognitive ability. And that’s why even a lead to a stroke, like hypertension, can be cumbersome and it can be fatal because the brain keeps everything in your body alive. Blocked arteries in the brain could easily bring everything in your body to a grinding halt if you’re not careful with your sodium intake.
Your likelihood of diabetes is reduced
If you have diabetes, then that’s all the more reason to be on the low sodium diet. Diabetes already throws your insulin out of working order, there’s really no need to make things worse with a sodium related heart disease or stroke. Anyway, a diet the consists of high intakes of salt, fats, and carbohydrates are not good for the body because they both clog up the arteries. The point is, you should eat salt, fats, and carbohydrates in moderation in order to prevent further complications down the line, even if you already have type 2-diabetes.
You get to live 10 years longer than those who aren’t on a low sodium diet
And living longer is a good thing. You also live with fewer health complications and live life to the fullest while doing so. With fewer arteries clogged in your system, you won’t have to live with so much discomfort, and you will be physically active even in your old age. And it’s better to be living with so much freedom in your life than so much dragging you down, anyway. And life is meant to be enjoyed, not to be suffered through so you should do what you can to make it as enjoyable as possible.
Overall, living a sodium-free diet can help you avoid a ton of health complications. Sure, it can take some effort to cook food every day, but it will be worth to avoid these health complications and live a healthier life. And besides, eating healthier foods can be more enriching and tastier than eating something packed with sodium. To eat less sodium, you can cook your meals at home and check the health food stores in your area to see if they have any foods that are low in sodium. And if you feel like eating packaged food, you can read the nutrition facts on the labels before you start eating them and keep track of how much sodium you eat.
And also, don’t eat too much at restaurants or at fast food places. Their foods have a lot of sodium in them. And the one way to check their meals’ nutrition facts is by looking them up online, and that’s good since the restaurant may not have the information and the fast food restaurants tend to hide theirs. So, look online and log those sodium milligrams before you eat your meal. Although, I highly recommend that you don’t eat out at a restaurant or at a fast food place since those places tend to have foods that are packed with sodium.
