Why too much sugar and salt together can raise your blood pressure
The impact of dietary sodium and fructose on renal sodium handling and blood pressure in healthy adults
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Eating a lot of salt alone doesn’t usually raise blood pressure in young, healthy people — but adding a huge amount of sugar (like drinking soda all day) makes your body hold onto salt, which then pushes your blood pressure up a little.
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Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Eating a lot of salt alone doesn’t usually raise blood pressure in young, healthy people — but adding a huge amount of sugar (like drinking soda all day) makes your body hold onto salt, which then pushes your blood pressure up a little.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 567 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Publication
Authors
McMillan RK, Stock JM, Romberger NT, Wenner MM, Chai SC, Farquhar WB
Related Content
Claims (6)
Consuming large amounts of sodium leads to higher blood pressure in adults.
Consuming 200 grams of fructose and 3,900 mg of sodium daily for seven days raises average 24-hour blood pressure by about 3 mmHg in healthy adults aged 18–45 compared to diets with standard levels of these substances.
In healthy young adults, eating a lot of salt for seven days does not raise blood pressure, but adding a lot of fructose to the same diet causes a small increase in blood pressure, showing that fructose changes how the body responds to salt.
When healthy young adults consume 200 grams of fructose with 3,900 mg of sodium daily for seven days, their kidneys excrete 15% less sodium in urine compared to when they consume the same amount of sodium without fructose.
In healthy adults aged 18–45, a diet with 200 grams of fructose and 3,900 mg of sodium daily for seven days causes a 4 percentage point reduction in the normal nighttime drop of systolic blood pressure compared to a diet with high sodium alone.