Sodium Intake Vs. Health

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Some people may say that high sodium intake is not as damaging as high sugar intake. However, sodium has a different function than sugar. Sodium helps a person keep a balance of the fluid in the kidneys and blood vessels. Sugar, on the other hand, gives the body energy. Clearly, too much sodium or sugar is hard on the human body. The influences of high sodium intake are multifaceted, which is also very complex, like high sugar intake. However, sodium is very difficult to rid from the circulatory system and therefore its negative effects are more dominant than the negative effects of high sugar intake.

How does high sodium consumption affect peoples’ lives at Oakland University? To be specific, I did a little research on the school campus. A total of 105 students and alumni were interviewed and surveyed. The age ranges of those people are from 19 to 55, but the majority of them are from 20-25. All of these 105 people are living in Michigan currently.

Further investigating into the awareness of the problem of high sodium intake revealed that 48.89% of the 105 people know someone within their family who has high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart-related diseases overall. Among the 45 interviewed people, there are only 4% of them who care about the nutrients in their meals; and 2% of the surveyed 60 people cared about the nutrients in their meals. However, of the 45 people interviewed, 33% are big fans of eating out; 90% of them often chose fast food restaurants as their dining places. The surveyed 60 people showed very similar results with those from the interview: 28% of the 60 surveyed people like eating out, and 92% of them often chose fast food restaurants to dine at. During the interview, one student, M. Srivastava, said:

I was really tired of cooking food every day. I am a college student. I am living by myself, so I usually could not finish all the cooked food within one day. Thus, I had to waste some food. I thought that eating out is the best way for me, I do not need to waste food, and I can save time without cooking. I often buy my food at Wendy’s, Hungry Howie’s, or McDonald’s, because their prices are affordable. Plus, their food can be made within 15 minutes, so I do not have to wait for a long time. Just order, pay and leave. This is very convenient. (Personal communication, March 18, 2015)

No matter if these 105 participants were interviewed or surveyed, if they choose to eat high sodium content food, they should drink more water to dilute their blood concentration in order to avoid high blood pressure. Surprisingly, there are only 16% of the interviewed 45 people who usually drink five or more cups of water per day, and 14% of the surveyed 60 people who usually drink five or more cups of water per day.

Both survey and interview results show that many of the 105 people are taking higher amounts of sodium than 2300mg per day. People from the same family normally have a similar dietary habit, so the problem can be seen very clearly. 48.89% is a very high amount of those interviewed with family members suffering from these conditions. This means there are possibly about 49 people who may die due to high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart-related diseases out of every 100 people in the world. Therefore, the data from this research well proved that high sodium intake is negatively affecting their own or their family members’ health. The higher intake of sodium amounts in peoples’ bodies, the higher chance they will get high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart-related diseases. On the other hand[g], sodium intake is a very important and necessary problem that really should be focused on in today’s society.

A healthier body starts [h]with paying attention to details in daily life. Nutrients are very necessary to the human body. Balancing nutrients’ intake amounts and trying to manage each meal is a good way to stay healthy. High sodium intake is a very harmful and serious situation to everyone in the world, and it will cause many diseases in the future if people do not focus on their amount of sodium intake day by day.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014, September 9). Dietary guidelines for sodium and potassium. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/salt/

McNeil, N. (2015, March 6). McDonald's USA nutrition facts for popular menu items. Retrieved from

http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/getnutrition/nutritionfacts.pdf

Mozaffarian, D., Powles, J., Fahimi, S., Singh, G. M., Micha, R., Khatibzadeh, S… Global Burden of Diseases Nutrition and Chronic Diseases Expert Group. (2014). Global sodium consumption and death from cardiovascular causes. The New England Journal of Medicine, 371(7), 624. Retrieved from http://www.nejm.org

Pasquale, S., Lanfranco, D., Ngianga-Bakwin, K., & Francesco, P C. (2009, November 25). Salt intake, stroke, and cardiovascular disease: meta-analysis of prospective studies. The BMJ. Retrieved from http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b4567