Among people who take corticosteroid medications to help control lupus, hypertension is even more common. Among other reasons, corticosteroids cause the body to retain excess fluid, which in turn can cause blood pressure to become too high. As you probably know, limiting dietary sodium is a very important way to limit fluid retention and to control blood pressure. What's less widely known is that boosting your intake of other minerals may also help control blood pressure. Blood pressure basics.
Blood pressure is expressed as one number over another.
The top number is the systolic pressure, or the pressure on arteries as the heart beats, and the bottom number is the diastolic pressure, the pressure on the arteries between beats of the heart. The sodium connection. Eating too much salt is one risk factor for developing hypertension. More precisely, it's the sodium portion of table salt, officially called sodium chloride, that is most responsible for raising blood pressure. There are actually two ways that sodium can raise blood pressure.