Surprisingly, traditional purple bamboo salt, unlike other salts does not induce hypertension in rats

Hypertension induces many of the social costs related by cardiovascular diseases. Sodium is known as a crucial factor in inducing type I hypertension. In traditional Korean medicine, bamboo salt (BS) has been used in the attenuation of salts toxic coldness and nowadays it has shown various therapeutic effects. It contains mostly sodium chloride (about 91.7% of BS); however, the effect of BS on hypertension is still not completely understood. Thus, we investigated the effect of BS on blood pressure for the first time. Two group of BS, sun-dried salt (SDS), NaCl, or distilled water (DW, vehicle control) was administrated orally for 8 weeks. Although BS had no effect on body weight and food intake, it increased water intake (p < 0.05). The BS groups, in terms of blood pressure, was similar to the DW group; whereas the SDS and NaCl groups showed significantly increased blood pressure levels (p < 0.05). BS also decreased sodium-chloride cotransporter (NCC) mRNA expression, unlike SDS or NaCl. These observations indicate that BS may be a promising strategy for the prevention of various diseases including salt-related diseases.