We all know that eating too much salt can increase your risk of developing high blood pressure and suffering from heart problems, including stroke, but now new research has suggests there’s another big health reason to cut back.
A new study on mice, published in the Nature Neuroscience journal, suggests that a high-salt diet could harm neurons in the brain, contributing to cognitive issues, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Scientists from Cornell University in the US believe that salt may alter our immune response in the gut, which in turn seems to affect blood flow to the brain.
After just a few weeks of feeding mice a high-salt diet – equivalent to more than the recommended 6g or one teaspoon of salt that adults should consume daily – researchers found that the animals struggled to identify new objects in recognition tests, indicating that their non-spatial memory had been affected.
‘Normal cognition function requires an adequate, well-regulated delivery of blood flow,’ researcher Dr Costantino Iadecolan told the Mail Online. ‘Neurons are very finicky, like little children, they want only one kind of food: only glucose and oxygen.’
He added: ‘This extended lifetime intake of salt could potentially be one of those factors that works with others to create dementia.’
Interestingly, after the mice were taken off the high-salt diet, their blood flow and neuron function returned to normal, which suggests that cutting back on salt could have a similarly positive effect on humans.
Speaking about the findings, Alzheimer’s Research UK spokesperson Dr Sara Imarisio told the Mail Online: ‘This research not only highlights the importance of the immune system for brain health but also suggests that changes in the gut can play a role.
‘The findings highlight the importance of cutting out excess salt in our diets, as well as identifying possible new avenues in the search for treatments to help those with memory problems or dementia.’
