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Eating too much sodium can contribute to high blood pressure in adults. Is a salty diet as dangerous for children?
In a study published in the journal Pediatrics researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that young children eat as much salt as adults , putting them at increased risk can develop a pressure, a risk factor for heart disease and premature death. high blood pressure risk can most among the 37% of American children are considered overweight or obese, the study found.
The scientists examined diet data and blood pressure on 6,235 children aged 8 to 18 who participated in the great survey of the National Health and Nutrition Examination funded by the government between 2003 and 2008. the children came to mobile sites where trained researchers asked detailed questions about what they had eaten during the previous 24 hours. Children also had their blood pressure measured three times to ensure consistent readings.
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On average, participants ate about 3387 mg of sodium per day - about the same as the adults. (Current dietary guidelines recommend that children and adults consume no more than 2,300 mg per day.) Older children tend to consume more salt than younger children. And the salt that children eat, the higher their blood pressure readings were. Children with the highest sodium intake were twice as likely to have prehypertension or hypertension than those who consumed the least salt. In addition, children with the highest intake of salt and were also overweight or obese were more than three times the risk of high blood pressure, compared with the lowest salt intake group.
This means that the combined effect of the two excess sodium and excess weight has an amplified effect on blood pressure than either would alone, said lead author of the study Quanhe Yang, senior researcher in the division of heart disease and the prevention of stroke in CDC. And since hypertension is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke in adulthood, suggesting that a generation of children could be more vulnerable to these conditions than ever before.
Previous studies have linked higher sodium intake in children and increased blood pressure, but none had taken into account the effect of weight on this relationship. Understanding how both sodium and excess weight can influence blood pressure is essential, said Yang, since more than a third of American children are overweight or obese.
( MORE: To Salt or not Salt study questions benefits of dietary sodium reduction)
The good news, however, is that reducing salt intake in children can have a profound effect on their blood pressure, and lead to a greater drop in the risk of hypertension is that weight loss alone or sodium restriction. "If we could reduce the sodium intake, which will achieve more than the expected reduction in cases of hypertension due to the synergistic effect," he said.
study shows that Yang the average American child exceeds the daily dose of sodium recommended by over 1000 mg. so, even if they have not already hypertension, young people today are more at risk of developing hypertension that they become adults. Recognizing that salt can begin to affect the blood pressure of a young age could focus public health efforts to reduce sodium intake in children and adults, he said, and hope have a broad effect on the control of blood pressure in the general population.
"If we reduce salt intake in childhood, the effect will follow through society, and probably result in a significant change in systemic blood pressure now and in the future, "he said.
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Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
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