Does salt cause water retention?
Question:
Answers:
Salt doesn't thicken blood - dehydration can cause hemoconcentration.
When you eat salt, the amount of sodium and chloride in your cells & tissues increases. Anytime there is a shift in what the body recognizes as normal, or homeostasis (means everything is in balance), the body will compensate in some way to re-establish the balance. In this case the body retains water to get the sodium/chloride balance back to what it should be. At least that's the way I understand it. The blood pressure spike is caused in part by the extra effort the heart needs to pump blood thru blood vessels crowded by swelling or fluid retention. That and probably some mechanisms related to kidney function that i am not smart enough to understand. That's it in a nutshell.
Other Answers:
yes
Yes it does. If you are having problems with water retention there can be several reasons for this so please do you and your love ones a favor and see a doctor. I was having the same problem and it was not a blood pressure problem, it was something I would not have guessed. One of the ways your body controls blood pressure is to control blood volume. This is how much actual liquid volume that is in circulation. The greater the blood volume the greater the blood pressure. This is why one of the first drugs for hypertension is a diuretic to reduce blood volume. Salt will retain fluid volume and increase blood volume, this is the mechanism by which blood pressure is raised, it has nothing to do with viscosity, in other words the thickness of the blood.
Salt or NaCl (sodium chloride) are important elements in your body. Na is the major electrolyte which helps control you body's fluid balance. The body has to be maintained in a constant equilibrium (homeostasis). Too much Na in the body (from dietary intake) makes the body hold on to water to keep the Na concentration level. (dilutional effect). As a result of holding on to too much water, the blood volume increases and as a result increases blood pressure because the blood vessels can only accomodate up to certain volume of blood at any given time. Blood technically is more dilute as a result not thicker. It is when you lose too much fluid (vomiting/diarrhea) that the blood gets thicker, but this means there is less of it, and can result in low blood pressure.
salt causes water retention, it is a complex process, but it is one of the ways that salt raises your blood pressure, through increasing blood volume because of the water retention.
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