According to a report released by the University of Alabama, a high amount of salt can play a role in resistant high blood pressure in spite of the intake of medications to control it.

Resistant hypertension is the blood pressure that doesn’t respond to treatment. It remains elevated above goals disregarding taking several drugs in order to lower it, The Washington Post wrote on its Web site.

As maintained by Dr. Eduardo Pimenta, M.D., Department of Hypertension and Nephrology at the Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil, "high-salt diet contributes importantly to resistant-to-treatment hypertension and high volume and vascular resistance may contribute to resistant hypertension."

To carry out the research, 13 patients with resistant high blood pressure participated. Some of them were haphazardly assigned to a high-salt diet, whereas the others were assigned to a low-salt diet. They were all administered al least three medications to lower the blood pressure.

The team of researchers, led by Mr. Pimenta, discovered that the systolic blood pressure of the participants who followed the second type of diet fell by 22 mmHg, in contrast with participants who followed the first type of diet. Furthermore, body weight and brain natriuretic peptide concentrations, as well as thoracic fluid content (also known as TFC, an indicator of total fluid volume), raised more among patients on the low-salt type, in contrast with patients who were assigned to the high salt, the newspaper reported.

The conclusion researchers have drawn, based on the study, is that salt may contribute to resistant high blood pressure, being a factor that shouldn’t be disregarded. This is also the opinion of Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, LA. The findings suggest “among patients with medication-resistant hypertension that salt restriction has a substantial impact on lowering blood pressure by reducing intravascular fluid retention and improving vascular function," he stated.