Scientists uncover brain region underlying salt addiction

Scimex: Craving that after-work burger with fries? Melbourne scientists have uncovered the exact reasons behind salt’s addictive nature. Dr Craig Smith from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and Deakin University’s School of Medicine, has shown how a specific circuit in the brain’s opioid system is responsible for making us seek out salt. The discovery points the way toward drug treatments that could reduce our intake of high salt foods.

No need to pickle children: get Big Food to cut salt for better health

TheConversation: The World Health Organisation and governments around the world make clear recommendations about maximum salt consumption for kids. But everywhere they are measured, these safe levels are being exceeded. A recent national nutrition survey in Australia found almost every child aged between two and eight exceeded recommended salt consumption levels. Worse still, children were more likely to exceed recommended intakes than adults. But even these estimates are rosy because salt added during cooking or as seasoning at the table is not usually recorded.

Reducing salt in food good for the heart and health budgets

Otago University research shows that introducing strategies that reduce the dietary salt intake could reduce premature death and save millions of dollars annually for health sector. Pr Nick Wilson says dietary sodium (in salt) is a major global disease risk factor—lowering salt lowers blood pressure, which then lowers heart disease and stroke rates. “The aim of the research was to identify health benefits and cost savings for New Zealanders. We wanted to model the impact of reducing salt in a country that still has a high burden of heart attacks and stroke.” A ‘sinking lid’ strategy, of reducing the amount of salt over multiple years that is available for the food industry to add into processed food, was found to reap the greatest health benefits and cost savings. This strategy involved reducing the level of sodium from 3500 mg or 1.5 teaspoons of salt per day per person—the current daily salt intake on average for a New Zealand adult—down to 2300 mg of sodium per day (or 1 teaspoon of salt). In total this strategy resulted in an extra 211,000 quality-adjusted life-years for adult New Zealanders over the remainder of their lifetimes.

Potassium Improved Blood Pressure in Teen Girls, Salt Had No Adverse Effect

JAMA: Eating 3,000 mg per day of salt or more appears to have no adverse effect on blood pressure in adolescent girls, while those girls who consumed 2,400 mg per day or more of potassium had lower blood pressure at the end of adolescence, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. The scientific community has historically believed most people in the United States consume too much salt in their diets. The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends limiting sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day for healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 50. The relationship between dietary sodium and blood pressure in children and adolescents is largely unexamined in prospective studies, according to the study background.

Less salt at lunch does not trigger consumers to compensate

Wageningen: Consumers who lunch with products containing an average of 41% less salt accept these products and do not compensate for this lower salt consumption during the rest of the day. Low-sodium foods can therefore help to reduce daily salt intake. This is the result of research carried out by Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research, TNO and the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection (RIVM), commissioned by the Dutch Ministries of Economic Affairs and Health, Welfare & Sport.

High-salt diet may help to fight skin infections

Scimex: A high-salt diet may offer increased protection against skin infections, a German and US study has found. The study found mice that ate a diet high in salt had increased sodium accumulation on their skin which boosted their immune response to a skin-infecting microbes. The authors say salt may have been an ancient strategy to warn of infections before the invention of antibiotics.