Eating too much hot-pot cuisine could lead to high blood pressure, New Taipei City Choninn Hospital doctor Chen Po-chen (陳柏臣) said.
Hot-pot meals tend to be salty, and excess sodium can agitate the urinary system, which is the body’s mechanism for removing calcium from the bloodstream. Eating hot-pot too often could result in a loss of excessive amounts of calcium, Chen said.
Calcium in the bloodstream is important in the regulation of the body’s water balance, Chen said.
Insufficient intake or substantial and rapid losses of calcium can cause smooth muscles in blood vessels to contract, reducing the width of blood vessels throughout the body, Chen said.
To compensate for increased resistance, heart pressure is heightened; if the condition becomes chronic, morbid high blood pressure can develop, which is linked to heart attacks, cardiac failure, strokes and kidney disease, he said.
Chen said that one of his patients developed high blood pressure at the young age of 29, perhaps because of too many hot pot meals.
The patient began to have headaches and vertigo, which the patient thought was the result of overwork, but he was later diagnosed with high blood pressure during a routine health examination, which showed that his blood calcium levels were abnormally low, Chen said.
Chen added that after the patient reduced oils and salt in his diet and began drinking calcium-fortified milk, the patient’s condition began to improve.
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