(RxWiki News) If you have chronic kidney disease (CKD), limiting your salt intake could help lower your blood pressure, a new study found.
And because high blood pressure often results from CKD and can cause serious health problems like strokes, this could be an important finding for patients.
This study also found that all it took to help patients with CKD reduce their salt intake enough to lower their blood pressure was regular advice from health care providers.
"We found that reducing sodium in the diet helps to significantly reduce blood pressure and reduce the excess fluid retention that is common among patients with kidney disease," said Dr. Rajiv Saran, of the University of Michigan, in a press release. "This did not require complicated pre-cooked meals and was simply based on common sense advice given by trained dietitians that helps patient understand what it takes to reduce salt in their diets and what the potential benefits are likely to be."
This study followed 58 patients with CKD over a 10-week period, during which patients followed a normal diet, a transitional diet and a low-sodium diet. During that time, patients saw their systolic blood pressure drop by 11 points on average. Patients also experienced an average reduction in body water of one liter.
This study was published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The National Institutes of Health and Renal Research Institute funded this research. Two study authors held stock in a health care company.
