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Japanese study reveals that reducing the amount of salt can help you make less trips to the bathroom during the night.
Are you tired of having to wake up in the middle of the night in order to urinate? Well, according to a new Japanese study, it would appear that the reason most people have to urinate during the night is that they consume too much salt during the day. The study stated that nightly trips to the bathroom could be significantly reduced by making a minor lifestyle change.
Tomoshiro Matsuo of the Nagasaki University is the leading author of the new study which analyzes the connection between salt intake and nocturia (the need to get out of bed and urinate during the night). According to Matsuo and his colleagues, for some patients, especially those over the age of 60, nocturia can become a major health concern, as the patient cannot rest properly.
As you know, sleep disruptions caused by nocturia, among other things, can have all manners of implications such as increased stress, irritability, tiredness, and can also lead to heart diseases.
So, what is the solution to this issue? Well, according to Matsuo and his colleagues the solution is to eat less salt during the day. This might sound too simple and stupid to be true but, according to Matsuo’s data, one of the leading causes of nocturia is a high salt intake.
To test out this assumption, Matsuo and his team of researchers invited over 300 Japanese products to partake in the clinical study. For the duration of the study, the participants were split into two groups. The first group received instructions on how to reduce the amount of salt consumed each day, while the second was asked to consume more salt than usual.
Now, according to the American Heart Association, we shouldn’t consume more than 2.3 grams of sodium per day (one teaspoon). Ideally, we should consume 1.5 grams of sodium.
During the 12-week clinical study, approximately 200 participants managed to reduce their daily salt intake from 11 to 8 grams. The results revealed that those who consumed less per day observed a decrease in nighttime trips to the bathroom from 2.3 to 1.4 times.
On the other hand, the participants who increased their daily sodium intake from 9.6 to 11 grams, saw an increase in trips to the bathroom over the night from 2.3 to 2.7 times. The conclusion of the study is straightforward: if you want to decrease the number of nightly trips to the little boy’s room, you should eat less salt.
Image source: Pixabay
