Is It Seasoned?

This blog post explores how salt sensitivity in Blacks could be connected to slavery. Historical underpinnings of osmotic thirst and salt sensitivity and how it could relate to the transatlantic slave trade. Due to the conditions of the journey and the diet provided to the enslaved persons. Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas and various places and faced dehydration and salt deprivation, which possibly led to salt sensitivity in future generations. Due to the diet of enslaved people on plantations, they ate foods high in salt due to a lack of resources because slave masters gave them meats that they had to cure to be able to keep the meat edible and keep it from going rotten. Sodium levels paired with a lack of clean drinking water raise blood pressure (hypertension). Osmotic thirst comes in when describing the function of the hypothalamus and the reasons for hypertension. Osmotic thirst is regulated by osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus, which triggers a response when osmolarity rises due to higher salt intake, which encourages water consumption to dilute blood sodium levels and stabilize blood pressure levels. This blog post will connect all these points.

Family Ties

For as long as I could remember, it was implied that my food would have vastly more seasoning just because I was black and especially because I was from the Caribbean. My culture has a great reputation for numerous seasonings and other powerful tastes. I grew up in the mountains of St. Ann, Jamaica, where pimento peppers, coffee berries, and other seasonings grow. My first memory of my grandfather that I can recollect is a time my grandmother made Jerk Chicken, which is usually seasoned with a blend of spices and jerk seasoning which is high in sodium. My family utilizes a brand called Walkerswood a serving size is 1 tablespoon with 950mg of sodium. (Marianos, 2024). According to the American Heart Association states that you should only have 1,500mg of sodium a day. Based on the information provided that means that my grandfather has already reached his max while eating one piece of chicken, which my grandmother stopped him from consuming. I was made aware of how dangerous salt in high amounts was. According to Richardson et al., salt sensitivity in populations with increased rates of hypertension, such as non-Hispanic blacks, suggests that it may play an important role in the pathogenesis of this dangerous disease. (Richardson, 2015).

History of Black Food and Its Implications

During the transatlantic slave trade, Africans were only provided salted meats and limited vegetables and had a limited water supply due to the journey to nature of the passage. During slavery, slaves were provided with rotten pieces of meat, and it was usually the cheaper parts of meat, like the intestines (chitterlings) and other smoked meats (Rickwa, 2008). This is soul food or, overall, black food, which is still consumed today. A lot of times they added salt to make the inedible foods edible, which had a long-lasting effect on the generations today. (Worley, 2016).

Parts of the Brain that Salt Sensitivity Affects

Unfortunately, anything in excess does not do the body good. Salt triggers the body’s reward system, specifically the nucleus accumbens and ventral area (VTA) (Verharen et al., 2019). VTA responds to sodium deficiency by increasing the brain’s motivation and need for salt, showing how dopamine is released from the ventral area to the NAc mediates this drive. During the slave trade possibly benefited them by utilizing an increased neural drive to conserve and crave sodium to survive the long journey. Fitting to these conditions, it could potentially influenced salt sensitivity and cravings for future generations. (Veharen et al., 2019).

The article discusses how sodium deficiency triggers a physiological need for sodiumrich food but creates the motivation for sodium-rich foods. The article reports that the VTA Dopaminergic neurons do enhance salt appreciation in states of deficiency which shifts the salt from being perceived as aversive rather to being highly appetitive. This mechanism shed light on how the extreme environment that the enslaved Africans endured may have amplified their need for salt retention, and craving behaviors. (Grim, 1991). Which could be connected to hypertension in modern diets. The article discusses how sodium-related dopamine responses are crucial for maintaining homeostasis in an environment where sodium is derived. The enslaved person also responded to this condition due to the amount of stress that they were possibly under. Which then was connected to the contributing salt sensitivity in the hypertension seen in non-Hispanic Blacks today. (Richardson, 2018).

The hypothalamus regulates osmotic thirst and utilizes osmoreceptors to detect changes when salt intake is too high or if you are dehydrated and need more water. African American communities are affected most due to the amount of salt intake due to the recipes across the African diaspora. Salt intake can raise blood osmolarity making the hypothalamus activate thirst to dilute the salt concentration (Veharen, 2019).

Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper specifically integrates how neurobiological insights and history combined can examine salt sensitivities within non-Hispanic blacks. There were a lot of ties to the transatlantic slave trade. Also discussed were the hypothalamus and its functions, the nucleus accumbens, etc. Over generations, possible genetic adaptations formed, and assault retention developed, which possibly affected descendants of the slaves associated with the transatlantic slave trade. The continued influence of these traits that have been inherited doubled by the modern sodium diet plus stressors of the modern people could hypertension within African American communities by utilizing scientific evidence and historical context, it helps understand the disparities that African Americans face in the healthcare system. Gaining a deeper understanding of these disparities can help promote health equity within marginalized communities. As a society refine our understanding of how environments affect health outcomes it will help mitigate the impact on future generations within these communities that suffer most.

References

American Heart Association. (n.d.). Shaking the salt habit to lower high blood pressure. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/changes-you-can-make-to-managehigh- blood-pressure/shaking-the-salt-habit-to-lower -high-blood-pressure

Grim, C. E., & Wilson, T. W. (1991). Biohistory of slavery and hypertension in blacks: A hypothesis. Hypertension, 17(1_suppl), I122–I128. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.HYP.17.1_Suppl.I122

Hayford, V. (2018). The humble history of soul food. https://www.blackfoodie.co/the-humble-history-of-soul-food/

Richardson, S. I., Freedman, B. I., Ellison, D. H., & Rodriguez, C. J. (2013). Salt sensitivity: a review with a focus on non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics. Journal of the American Society of Hypertension: JASH, 7(2), 170–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jash.2013.01.003

Rickwa, K.(2008). Diet & Nutrition. Omeka RSS. https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/health---medicine-aboard-trans/diet---nutrition

Wallace, M. (2017). The real history of soul food. Epicurious. Retrieved October 31, 2024, from https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/real-history-of-soul-food-article

Worley, S. (2016). Where soul food really comes from. Epicurious. https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/real-history-of-soul-food-article

Verharen, J. P. H., Roelofs, T. J. M., Menting-Henry, S., Luijendijk, M. C. M., Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J., & Adan, R. A. H. (2019). Limbic control over the homeostatic need for sodium. Scientific Reports, 9, 1050. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37405-w