High salt diet is closely related to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as hypertension. According to the data published in the lancet magazine, in 2017, there were as many as 3 million cardiovascular deaths caused by excessive salt consumption worldwide. What's more serious is that eating more salt may bring more health damage than that. High salt diet increases inflammatory response The effect of high salt diet on blood pressure has certain population differences. Clinically, it can be roughly divided into salt sensitive population and salt insensitive population. When people adopt low salt diet and high salt diet, if the increase of mean arterial pressure (map) is equal to or more than 10%, they are salt sensitive people; If the increase is less than 10%, it is salt insensitive. Salt sensitive people are usually more likely to form hypertension due to high salt diet, while salt insensitive people are not affected. Therefore, clinicians pay more attention to salt control in salt sensitive people. However, the research published in the Chinese Journal of circulation by Mou Jianjun, director of cardiovascular medicine of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, and others suggests that the impact of high salt diet on salt insensitive people is also significant. In this study, subjects aged 18 ~ 60 with normal blood pressure were selected to participate in the chronic salt load test for 3 weeks. The results showed that whether salt sensitive or not, two key indicators of inflammation increased significantly in the high salt period of diet, causing inflammation in the body. The inflammatory state can cause leukocyte adhesion, affect renin angiotensin and sympathetic nervous system, damage vascular endothelial function, aggravate vasoconstriction, and eventually lead to elevated blood pressure, atherosclerosis and thrombosis. Mou Jianjun said that because of the discovery of this treatment mechanism, the international medical community believes that hypertension may be a chronic inflammatory disease. Regardless of whether they are salt sensitive or not, they will face health risks due to the independent factor of high salt. In addition to the above studies, the Institute of experimental animals of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences also found that high salt can activate platelets and activate cells involved in inflammatory response, resulting in vascular inflammation. Cell research, Institute of Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Academy of life sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out that the high salt environment will lead to the increase of gene expression related to inflammation and the relative decrease of anti-inflammatory gene expression, which means that the body has an inflammatory response. Inflammation brings many diseases In view of the relationship between inflammation and high salt diet, experts explained that when the salt intake is too high, the human body may produce an immune cell, produce too many pro-inflammatory factors, and then have an inflammatory reaction. Under excessive inflammatory reaction, the immune system will attack normal cells and disorder body function and metabolism, which can lead to a variety of diseases. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Mou Jianjun said that high salt diet can lead to increased inflammatory cell infiltration, elevated inflammatory level, damage blood vessels, and easy to cause stroke, myocardial hypertrophy, coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, etc. Clinically, if the amount of urinary sodium reaches 100 mmol / 24 hours, the mortality of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases will increase significantly. Type 2 diabetes. In the formation mechanism of type 2 diabetes, there is an "inflammation theory". It is believed that insulin resistance and insulin secretion defects in type 2 diabetic patients are caused by chronic inflammation of the corresponding tissues. Inflammation plays a key role in transforming obesity from type 2 to type 2 diabetes. Kidney disease. Most of the salt in the diet is metabolized by the kidney, so a high salt diet will increase the burden on the kidney, resulting in decreased renal function. Other medical studies have found that the increase of urinary protein in inflammatory state can also aggravate renal injury. Lung disease. The animal experimental study published in cell research in 2015 found that continuous high salt diet would aggravate lung inflammation and injury in mice. Compared with the normal diet group, the expression level of lung inflammation promoting molecules in the high salt diet group increased, resulting in more severe pulmonary edema. Tumor. The international scientific journal Nature once wrote that inflammation can promote tumor growth, including providing an environment suitable for cancer cell proliferation, promoting angiogenesis to meet the nutritional needs of cancer cells, and changing the response to hormones and chemotherapy. The research published in the journal Cell in 2010 further proposed that inflammation plays a decisive role in the occurrence, development, invasion and metastasis of tumors. Chinese people reduce salt slowly Cai Jingjing, a nutritionist in charge of the people's Hospital of Peking University, said that although China has issued several guidance documents calling for salt reduction, the national average salt intake is still high. In 2019, Queen Mary College of the University of London published an article on salt intake of Chinese residents in the Journal of the American Heart Association. After analyzing the data involving 900 children and 26000 adults, the researchers found that the average daily salt intake of Chinese adults in the past 40 years exceeded 10 grams, more than twice the amount recommended by the World Health Organization. In terms of the difference between the South and the north, the salt intake of residents in northern China reached an average of 11.2 grams per day, which was lower than 12.8 grams in the 1980s; However, the salt intake of Southern residents has increased from an average of 8.8 grams per day in the 1980s to 10.2 grams today. The researchers believe that although the government is vigorously advocating people to reduce salt and vegetables and fruits are increasingly abundant in the four seasons, people's preference for pickled food, the abundance of processed food and the increase of eating out have all become important reasons for the slow reduction of salt. In an interview with the life times, both experts said that when advising patients to control salt, the most frequently heard explanation was that "people don't eat salt and have no strength". "In the past, people engaged in a lot of agricultural work and needed to eat salt and work hard, but the way of production and life in modern society has changed greatly. If this understanding is not changed, it will be difficult to control salt," Mou Jianjun said. Make a low salt diet an attitude According to the advocacy goal proposed in the healthy China action plan (2019-2030), the per capita daily salt intake should not exceed 5g. Cai Jingjing reminded that people with special diseases need to strictly control salt intake. For example, people with hypertension must not eat more than 5 grams of salt a day, about the amount of a beer cover; For patients with renal insufficiency, salt intake should be controlled below 3 grams. To this end, experts suggest that it should be controlled from three aspects. Find out the source of salt. Professor He Fengjun of Queen Mary College, University of London, said that in China, most salt intake comes from family cooking salt, but a current trend is the rapid development of processed food, street snacks, restaurants and various fast-food chains. We must pay attention to the salt content in relevant foods. The salty foods in our daily diet, such as soy sauce, soy bean curd, pickles, pickles, bacon, soy sauce beef, ham sausage, sausage and so on, are large salt producers. For example, a salted duck egg contains 4 grams of salt, a Cantonese sausage has 3 grams of salt, a piece of soy bean curd (about 20 grams) contains 1.5 grams of salt, and some sweet snacks also contain high salt. Therefore, in addition to reducing eating out and eating less processed food, it is recommended to carefully check the food nutrition label when buying food, and give priority to those with low sodium content. Salt spoon for cooking. A recent study published by the China Center for Disease Control and prevention shows that people who use 2G salt spoon when cooking reduce their daily salt intake by 3.49g on average after three years, while those who do not use salt spoon reduce by only 2.2g on average. The decrease of blood pressure after 3 years was also more obvious in those who used salt restriction spoons than in those who did not use salt restriction spoons. In addition, when cooking at home, we should make good use of vinegar, lemon juice, onion, ginger, garlic and other seasonings to make up for the taste discomfort caused by the reduction of saltiness; Less fried barbecue and more cooking are also conducive to controlling the amount of salt. Low sodium salt is preferred. Mou Jianjun said that people with normal renal function give priority to low sodium salt. Potassium is added to this salt, which can antagonize sodium ions and promote sodium excretion. The potassium intake of Chinese residents is generally low, so the benefit of eating low sodium salt containing potassium will be more obvious. It is very difficult to achieve strict intake of 5 grams of salt per person per day in a short time. However, low salt diet can become an attitude, gradually develop a living habit in self reminding, put less every day, and it is possible to achieve the ultimate goal over time. Generally speaking, people can adapt to the new taste in two weeks and form a habit in three months.