people in an area of coastal Bangladesh affected by seawater intrusion. The residents relied upon pond water or groundwater as their main water source.
The study compared blood pressure levels among people who drank salinated water with those who drank freshwater. Even though sodium is known to increase blood pressure levels, study participants who drank the salinated water had lower blood pressure. That wasn’t because of the sodium, the researchers believe, but rather because of two other minerals in the water — calcium and magnesium.
“Calcium and magnesium are protective; they decrease blood pressure,” said Abu Mohammed Naser, a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta and lead author of the study. “What we suspect is happening is that they outweigh the harmful effects of sodium on blood pressure.”
That’s good news for people in Bangladesh, who lack alternative sources of drinking water, unlike people in more developed countries, where treatment plants desalinate contaminated groundwater.
But the findings also could have implications for any population struggling to reduce hypertension, which is
