A new study found that most widely-used drugs contain high salt content which increases the risks to cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, stroke, and even death.
According to the U.S Food and Drug Administration, our body needs some salt or sodium chloride to function properly. It helps balance the body’s fluid. However, to much salt can elevate the blood pressure which makes it difficult for the heart to function properly leading to cardiovascular diseases. The National Health Service website of the U.K states the same and added that the salt intake of adults should not exceed 6 grams (or a teaspoon).
Researchers from the University of Dundee, Scotland and University College London lead by Dr. Jacob George examined the salt content of drugs, mostly available over-the-counter, such as paracetamol, aspirin, ibuprofen, vitamin C, calcium or zinc. They also looked at the medical records and prescriptions of about 1.3 million people in a seven-year period. They have recorded 61,000 cardiovascular-related incidents.
Their analysis revealed that that these drugs increase the risk of the patients to cardiovascular diseases particularly by 22 percent on stroke, 16 percent on heart attack, and 28 percent on other diseases.
They also compared those who took the drugs to those who don’t in which they found that they are seven times at risk to developing high blood pressure. They also considered other factors such as body mass index, smoking, alcohol intake, history of various chronic illnesses and use other medications.
Since the results were alarming as it endangers the public health due to the easy availability of the drugs, the researchers are requesting for the government to implement proper labeling of the drugs to show the salt content.
The researchers admitted that they will need to do further studies to establish their conclusion, however, they believe that it is important to inform the public of the dangers of taking medications which have high salt content.
“Prescription of these sodium-containing formulations should be done with caution, and patients prescribed them should be closely monitored for the emergence of hypertension,” Dr. George said in a statement.
The study was published in the Nov. 26 issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
