Nighttime Urination Spoiling Your Sleep? Time To Cut Down On Salt

Cutting down the intake of salt in older adults reduces the excessive need to urinate during the night.

Highlights

Simply cutting back on salt intake can reduce night-time trips to the toilet.
Salt can only be disposed from the body when it is dissolved, so the more people eat, the more urine needs to be expelled to get rid of it.
Those who reduced salt intake to 8gms per day could cut down the number of trips to the toilet to 1.4 times from 2.3 times.

Reducing your salt intake can significantly reduce the need to pee in the night.

Nocturia or the excessive need to urinate during the night, mostly affects people over the age of 60 and can have a significant impact on a person’s quality of life because of the disruption to sleep.

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‘Reducing the amount of salt in one's diet can significantly reduce excessive peeing both during the day and when asleep. ’

Although it seems a simple problem, the lack of sleep can lead to other problems such as stress, irritability or tiredness, and so can have a significant negative impact on quality of life.

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A study of 321 men and women examined the association between salt intake and frequency of urination. The patients were given guidance and support to reduce salt consumption. They were followed for 12 weeks, and salt consumption measured biochemically.

The results showed that reducing daily salt intake to eight grams reduced the number of times participants needed to urinate, from 2.3 times a night to 1.4 times.

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Participants who had their average salt intake increased to 11 grams needed to use the loo 2.7 times more frequently.

"Research generally focuses on reducing the amount of water a patient drinks, and the salt intake generally is not considered. Here we have a useful study showing how we need to consider all influences to get the best chance of improving the symptom," said Dr Matsuo Tomohiro from Nagasaki University.

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Reducing the amount of salt in one’s diet can significantly reduce excessive peeing both during the day and when asleep, the study said.

Bottom line

"Night-time urination is a real problem for many people, especially as they get older. This work holds out the possibility that a simple dietary modification might significantly improve the quality of life for many people," said lead researcher Matsuo Tomohiro from Nagasaki University in Japan.

Salt can only be disposed from the body when it is dissolved, so the more people eat, the more urine needs to be expelled to get rid of it.

"This is the first study to measure how salt intake affects the frequency of going to the bathroom, so we need to confirm the work with larger studies," Tomohiro said.

Source-Medindia