HATE having to get up in the night to pee? Try cutting the amount of salt you eat.
Most people over the age of 60 (and a substantial minority under 60) wake up one or more times during the night to go to the bathroom. This is night time peeing, or nocturia. The lack of sleep can lead to other problems such as stress, irritability or tiredness, and can have a significant negative impact on quality of life.
Researchers from Nagasaki University gathered 321 Japanese people who had a high salt intake and had problems sleeping, and helped them change their salt intake over the course of 12 weeks - Japanese people tend to have a higher than average salt intake.
During the research 223 people were able to drop their intake from an average of 10.7 g per day to 8.0 g per day, and found they needed to get up to pee on average around one time less per night - from 2.3 times/night to 1.4 times. The participants who had to get up less often said they had a better quality of life as a result.
In contrast, 98 subjects increased their average salt intake from 9.6 gm/night to 11.0 gm/night and found that the need to urinate increased from 2.3 times/night to 2.7 times/night. The researchers also found that daytime urination was reduced when salt in the diet was reduced.
"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," said lead researcher Matsuo Tomohiro.
"Night time urination is a real problem for many people, especially as they get older. This work holds out the possibility that a simply dietary modification might significantly improve the quality of life for many people", said Dr Tomohiro.
