Return to La Pappa Organics Main Website

Return to La Pappa Organics Main Website
Click image to return to La Pappa Organics

High sodium intake correlates with obesity, inflammation

Most adolescents consume as much salt as adults - some more than twice the recommended daily allowance - and that high sodium intake correlates with fatness and inflammation regardless of how many calories they consume, researchers report.

In a study of 766 healthy teens, 97 percent self-reported exceeding the American Heart Association's recommendation of consuming less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium daily, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics.
"The majority of studies in humans show the more food you eat, the more salt you consume, the fatter you are," said Dr. Haidong Zhu, molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia and Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Regents University.

"Our study adjusted for what these young people ate and drank and there was still a correlation between salt intake and obesity," Zhu said.
These high-sodium consumers also had high levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha, which is secreted by immune cells and contributes to chronic inflammation as well as autoimmune diseases like lupus and arthritis. Additionally, the adolescents had high levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that normally suppresses appetite and burns fat, but at chronically high levels can have the opposite effects.

"Losing weight is difficult, but hopefully more people can be successful at reducing their sodium intake," said Zhu, the study's corresponding author. Reductions would result from not automatically adding salt to food and choosing fresh fruits and vegetables over French fries and processed meats and snacks.
"We hope these findings will reinforce for parents and pediatricians alike that daily decisions about how much salt children consume can set the stage for fatness, chronic inflammation and a host of associated diseases like hypertension and diabetes," said study co-author Dr. Gregory Harshfield, Director of the Georgia Prevention Center at the GRU institute.
High sodium intake has been linked to higher weight, possibly because of increased water retention. While the new study does not prove a causal effect, it contributes to mounting evidence that high sodium could be a direct cause of obesity and inflammation, Zhu and her colleagues report. Longitudinal or randomized clinical trials are needed to clarify the relationships, the researchers said.

"Obesity has a lot of contributing factors, including physical inactivity," Zhu said. "We think that high sodium intake could be one of those factors." Evidence suggests one direct cause may be increasing the size of fat cells.
The MCG study appears to be the first to use several robust measures of fatness to improve accuracy, including magnetic resonance imaging and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, which also measures bone density.

Source: medicalnewstoday.com

11 comments:

  1. I would definitely want to differ between what type of salt you consume with your foods.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My father puts salt on everything and I've always tried to convince him that he should use less when cooking. He should really read this article.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Salt is needed by the body but only in small amounts. We tend to think more is better when it comes to flavoring food.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know low salt diets are needed by those who have inflammation but the heavy weight was a surprise.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree, it depends WHAT kind of salt you take in, too. Most salts are bleached, which is really unhealthy. One of the healthiest salts is himalaya salt, which is rich in iodine.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I rarely use very much salt... Just never have. I prefer to use herbs to flavor my ingredients which cuts down on salt a great deal.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can see how salt relates to obesity and inflammation.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I can see this. I use to use salt on everything without even tasting it. Till I had my heart attack and they told me I had to cut it out.

    ReplyDelete
  9. It just goes to show you that some people need to cut down on there salt intake and it can lead to lots of problems such as obesity etc .

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's amazing how they are finding so many things that contribute to childhood obesity. I'm use salt on some things but not everything.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I never add salt to anything! I figure most food comes with in it to begin with I sure don't need to add to it.

    ReplyDelete