The incidence of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and about 100 others has been on the rise for decades. However the cause of these disorders--thought to be a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental triggers—has largely baffled researchers. Now researchers at Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute may have identified a prime suspect in the mystery — dietary salt.

Using a mice model, they demonstrated that salt can induce and worsen destructive immune system responses in mice and that the response involves genes already implicated in a variety of autoimmune diseases.

Acting on a Hunch

The research was inspired, in part, by an observation that eating at fast-food restaurants tended to trigger an increase in production of inflammatory cells, which are mobilized by the immune system to respond to injury or pathogens but which, in autoimmune diseases, attack healthy tissue. On a hunch, the researchers decided to test whether the high salt content in fast food might be the trigger that induces autoimmunity.

Suspicion Confirmed

In the lab, they found that adding salt to the diet of mice induced production of a type of T cell (Th17) previously associated with autoimmune diseases and that mice on high salt diets developed a more severe form of a multiple sclerosis animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

The researchers theorize that humans are not genetically selected for the typical Western high salt diet. This may explain the high rates of hypertension and autoimmune disorders as well.

While further study is needed, one researcher on the team is not waiting to act on these findings, “I already recommend that my patients use a low-salt, low-fat diet,” he said. That includes cutting down on processed foods he added.

More About Salt

Autoimmunity is only one of many health concerns related to dietary salt. We take an in-depth look at these concerns and provide tips to reduce your salt intake with, The Truth About Salt: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Sources:

Yale School of Medicine

American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association

For many years people with high blood pressure were told to lay off the salt as it caused an increase in fluid retention and blood volume which put harmful pressure on the blood vessels. At the same time, research going back to the 1960s and 1970s began to suspect that another mechanism may be at work.

After examining the body of hypertension studies, researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine report that salt raises blood pressure not by increasing blood volume but through its affect on the sympathetic nervous system to increase adrenalin. The adrenalin constricts arteries and causes the high blood pressure, not excess fluid volume.

In their report, the researchers point to studies in which other conditions characterized by increased blood volume do not cause a corresponding increase in blood pressure because the capillaries and veins expand to accommodate increased fluid volume.

In addition, other studies demonstrated that hypertension resulting from the excessive consumption and retention of salt stimulates the sympathetic nervous system in the brain to increase adrenaline production. The increased adrenalin being circulated throughout the body causes the arteries to constrict, which results in resistance to blood flow and a decrease in circulation.

This over-reaction of the sympathetic nervous system has been recognized as a characteristic of hypertension that accompanies kidney failure-- the most typical example of high blood pressure from excessive salt retention. Currently diuretics, which remove excess salt, are widely used to treat this type of hypertension. However, this study provides compelling evidence that the sympathetic nervous system should be the focus of new research into treatments for hypertension.

In the future, study authors believe the optimal treatment for hypertension associated with renal failure should not only include diuretics but also the use of drugs that block the central sympathetic nervous system.

To learn more - read The Truth about Salt: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Sources:

Food Navigator

Boston University School of Medicine/

It's "More Herbs, Less Salt Day!" And no, we aren't making that up. Today we recognize and celebrate the health and flavor that herbs bring to our diets.

Summer's fresh herbs are now readily available and they are the perfect compliment to any salad or pasta. Strongly-flavored herbs added to food also help you reduce or eliminate the need for salt.

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends you eat foods with little or no salt to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Your goal should be to consume less than 1,500 mg of sodium per day (less that 3/4 teaspoon of salt). Researchers say, sodium increases blood pressure because it holds excess fluid in the body, placing an added burden on the heart.

Currently, the AHA is working with federal agencies, food manufacturers and restaurants to reduce the amount of sodium in foods by 50 percent over a 10-year period.

Here are some easy tips to help you reduce sodium in your diet:

• When dining out, ask for your dish to be prepared without salt
• Limit salty snacks, such as chips and pretzels
• Locate fresh and frozen food without added salt
• Opt for low fat or fat free dairy products
• Add lemon juice to your fish and vegetables
• Avoid adding salt and canned vegetables to meals you prepare at home

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers additional tools and resources at ChooseMyPlate.gov. The site features advice on how to balance your calories throughout the day, which foods you should eat more of and which foods you should reduce or eliminate from your diet. This is a great tool to use if you are looking to reduce your overall sodium intake.

Did you know that grilling with herbs and spices can decrease harmful cancer-causing substances from forming on your food? Read how cooking with herbs and spices helps cut your cancer risk here.

Sources:

American Heart Association

USDA

I find it more than a little coincidental and rather interesting that, prior to the latest Dietary Guidelines for America from the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services calling for cutbacks in sugar, solid fats and salt, a study hitting the MSM demonstrated how salty foods can affect the arteries of healthy people only a half-hour after eating them.

Sixteen healthy patients (evenly divided into two groups) received either a low-salt cup of tomato soup or one with 10 times the amount of salt, then had their blood pressures checked at half-hour intervals over a two-hour period. As the blood pressure cuff deflated, Australian researchers also used ultrasonic equipment to measure the size of their arteries. Later, the same tests were repeated with patients switching tomato soup snacks.

Patients who ate the salty soup each time consistently experienced the same problem with their arteries: Their ability to widen diminished by nearly 50 percent after just 30 minutes. Scientists theorize fats and salt may block the release of nitric oxide, a substance that allows the walls of arteries to relax, thus allowing vessels to expand and blood to follow more freely throughout the body. Although this narrowing was temporary (lasting two hours), medical experts believe consistently higher salt intakes leave folks vulnerable to hypertension down the road.

From a health benefit perspective, the effect of cutting your salt intake by 3 grams is similar to giving up smoking. So, what's stopping you?

Journal of Clinical Nutrition January 12, 2011

MSNBC January 27, 2011

Yahoo News January 31, 2011

MyFoxDetroit.com January 27, 2011

Reducing the amount of salt in your daily diet certainly makes a great impact on your health, but what if you really, REALLY like it in your foods? Korean scientists may have found a tasty, healthy alternative in bamboo salts.

Used in Korea to promote better health, bamboo salts were prepared long ago by putting sea salts in bamboo shoots and baking it two to three times with pine tree firewood, although the modern baking process has been lengthened to at least nine times. Researchers compared the culinary effects of bamboo salts baked twice and nine times, respectively, to commercial table salt by preparing meat-based batters with each condiment.

From a chemical standpoint, meat batter made with ordinary table salt scored the lowest of the three substances in terms of color and flavor, very important measures when you're making a gravy from tasty bits of meat.

Conversely, bamboo salts possessed higher pH levels (due to elevated levels of alkali, calcium and potassium), and better viscosity, texture, cooking yield, emulsion stability and water-holding capacity. Perhaps, these results will lead to further research on potential uses for bamboo salts in processed meat products, researchers say.

Meat Science, Vol. 86, No. 4, p. 960-965, December 2010

FoodNavigator.com September 24, 2010

Preventing heart attacks and saving lives are pretty huge benefits you can enjoy merely by cutting your daily salt intake by a half-teaspoon, but not the only ones, especially if you're a kidney dialysis patient needing to regulate your blood pressure.

One of the delicate balancing acts kidney dialysis patients face: Establishing and maintaining an accurate dry-weight, a number that determines how much fluid building up in a patient's body between dialysis treatments needs to be removed. Most patients are limited to about a third to one-half of the typical daily fluid intake of people who have working kidneys (100 ounces per day), depending on body size, urine output and physical activity. And, salt intake drives thirst and escalates blood pressure.

Researchers found kidney dialysis patients had a much easier time maintaining their proper dry-weight between treatments and controlling their blood pressure by reducing their salt intake. Not a surprise, considering previous studies showed how dry-weight reduction through dialysis coupled with lower salt intake were more beneficial to a patient's heart health than taking a drug, and that cardiovascular problems are the leading cause of death among folks suffering from chronic kidney disease.

Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology May 27, 2010

ScienceDaily May 29, 2010

It's hard to imagine cutting out anything as small as a half-teaspoon of anything in your daily diet would make an impact on your health as great as reducing your risk of heart attack or even death. As we've observed time and again in this space, however, making the simplest changes -- like eating foods more slowly -- can have a huge impact on your health for the positive.

That's why we're far less skeptical than some of you may be about the impact of reducing your salt intake by just a half-teaspoon, based on the results culled from the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model, a digital simulation of heart disease among adults used by scientists to predict the benefits derived from making changes to the collective diets of Americans.

Saving the lives of some 92,000 Americans and preventing nearly 100,000 heart attacks, merely by reducing one's salt intake by 3 grams isn't just the healthy thing to do (although it's comparable to the effect of quitting smoking). The projected savings to the nation's spiraling-out-of-control health care tab by reducing salt alone may save as much as $24 BILLION.

If you like to add salt liberally to your foods, this single change should be a fairly easy one to make. Making this change may be a bit tricky for some folks, however, who don't add salt to anything (that's me). For example, an average 14-ounce can of green beans contains nearly 1,300 mg of salt.

All the more reason for me and you to pay closer attention to nutritional labels, particularly the salt that hides in processed foods.

New England Journal of Medicine January 20, 2010 Free Full Text Study

EurekAlert January 20, 2010

Scientists may have discovered a safer and more natural way to cut a person's daily consumption of salt to a more manageable level merely by adding small concentrations of vinegar to processed foods, according to a new study.

This survey of some 40 young women examined how rice vinegar and rice black vinegar affected a patient's perception of saltiness. The addition of vinegar, concentrated with acetic acid, to a salt solution (based on the detection threshold of each patient) lowered the threshold level of salt detection "significantly," researchers say.

Interestingly, the reverse scenario -- adding salt to vinegar at half the detection threshold -- wasn't true. In fact, patients couldn't discern any change in their perceptions of vinegar or salt.

One day, these results may be instrumental in having a great effect on the average person's health, considering salt often "hides" in processed foods -- cereal, canned vegetables frozen dinners and soups to name a few -- and
can trigger hypertension.

Journal of Food Science, Vol, 74, No. 4, p. 147-153, May 2009

Food Navigator.com May 29, 2009