Bamboo Salt English | Page 8

physiological reactions in animals. Dr. David McCarron, a professor of Medical School, and his research team at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, U.S.A., investigated 10,372 Americans’ diet and health. The results were published in Science Magazine. The report said that people with high blood pressure had an intake of calcium that was 19.6% lower than that of people with normal blood pressure. It claimed that hypertension occurs not because of an over intake of salt in food, but because of a lack of calcium intake. Dr. Shibata Jiro, a hypertension specialist in Japan, claimed in his book that salt has nothing to do with hypertension. I’ d like to ask a few questions to those doctors who claim that salt causes hypertension. I’ ve never read any medical books that say that a long-term administration of a large amount of salt can cure hypotension. If people with normal blood pressure have hypertension due to a large intake of salt, shouldn’ t eating a lot of salt increase the blood pressure of hypotension patients? However, no one has said or wrote anything about this. Isn’ t it obvious that salt and blood pressure have nothing to do with each other? It is evident that salt is not a food that raises blood pressure. However, it is not only people without medical knowledge who believe that taking in a large amount of salt in the long-term causes hypertension, but also many doctors and medical scientists. The so-called medical knowledge that salt is the cause of high blood pressure is believed among people like a superstition. However, 80% of hypertension is essential hypertension. Here essential means it is caused by inherent genetic factors or by unknown reasons. The other 20% of hypertension is caused due to a nephritis, other kidney diseases or hormonal abnormalities. 8 8