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Salt Linked To Autoimmune Diseases

Posted by Soulskill on from the literally-everything-is-trying-to-kill-us dept.

ananyo writes "The incidence of autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, has spiked in developed countries in recent decades. In three studies published today, researchers describe the molecular pathways that can lead to autoimmune disease and identify one possible culprit that has been right under our noses — and on our tables — the entire time: salt. Some forms of autoimmunity have been linked to overproduction of TH17 cells, a type of helper T cell that produces an inflammatory protein called interleukin-17. Now scientists have found sodium chloride turns on the production of these cells (abstract). They also showed that in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis, a high-salt diet accelerated the disease's progression (abstract)."

20 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Everything good is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Salt, sugar, ethanol, nicotine, any food that isn't raw and tasteless--in an ideal healthy world, we would all eat a diet of cardboard and water and walk around flagellating ourselves all day.

    Enjoyable = sinful = unhealthy

    1. Re:Everything good is bad for you by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      I take this sort of story with a pinch of salt to be honest.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:Everything good is bad for you by HappyHead · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And once we are eating that diet free of salt, sugar, and all the rest of that, we'll all die of malnutrition since most of those things are (or are our primary source of) vital nutrients. The human body is a badly designed, self-destructing patchwork of bits that are perpetually one bad jolt away from a breakdown, so it's not surprising that they've discovered yet again, that excessive quantities of things we need to live will also kill us.

      Even water has an LD50 after all. Too much of it will leach away all of the electrolytes (including sodium chloride) from your body, and kill you.

    3. Re:Everything good is bad for you by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have yet to hear any study suggest that sex is bad for you.

      You're not visiting the right churches.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Everything good is bad for you by Dantoo · · Score: 5, Funny

      It would be awful to die all alone like that though........

    5. Re:Everything good is bad for you by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And at the end of the day what does all this denial get you? Even Jesus didn't get out of here alive folks but let us say, just for the sake of argument they had a new "lets all eat cardboard" diet that made you live to 120....anybody spent any time with someone over 85? That is NOT a good life or a good way to be, most of your family is dead, your friends too, probably your spouse and maybe even a child or two, you're weak, your bones are easily broken, frankly death would probably be a blessing. My grandma lived to 98 and honestly those last 10 years were hell because she lost so many friends as well as her husband and oldest child...why? Why would you want that?

      I mean sure if they could give me a cyborg body so i could do everything I could at 30 at 90 that would be one thing but as it is now they just tack on years at the end, which is when it all goes to shit anyway...no thanks.,Give me an extra 10 years of being 20 or something, don't add years to the end.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    6. Re:Everything good is bad for you by pavon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The human body is a badly designed, self-destructing patchwork of bits that are perpetually one bad jolt away from a breakdown, so it's not surprising that they've discovered yet again, that excessive quantities of things we need to live will also kill us.

      Actually I draw the opposite conclusion from this. The human body is so amazingly flexible and adaptable, that it can survive on a huge variety of diets, and can compensate for poor diets so well that it can be difficult to realize the long-term effects that these poor diets are having, given the relatively benign short-term symptoms.

    7. Re:Everything good is bad for you by mpe · · Score: 4, Informative

      And once we are eating that diet free of salt, sugar, and all the rest of that, we'll all die of malnutrition since most of those things are (or are our primary source of) vital nutrients.

      It turns out that there is no such thing as an "essential sugar" in the human diet. Not even amylose or amylopectin...

    8. Re:Everything good is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My grandfather is 85. He's a computer geek who lives on microwave dinners. My father had the opposite lifestyle: Lots of exercise, and healthy food. He died from undiagnosed diabetes and high blood pressure at 62. Sometimes there's more to longevity than diet.

    9. Re:Everything good is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And at the end of the day what does all this denial get you? Even Jesus didn't get out of here alive folks but let us say, just for the sake of argument they had a new "lets all eat cardboard" diet that made you live to 120....anybody spent any time with someone over 85?

      Speak for yourself, you young whippersnapper, because I think life is still grand. I've gone from seeing computers that filled rooms of tubes to ones that fit on a desk to ones you can carry in your hand, each more powerful than the last. Granted, you kids these days have some crazy ideas. And won't stay off my lawn. But if I could live to 120 and still have the quality of life I do now, I'd find something useful to do with all that extra time. If nothing else, books are being written faster than I can read them.

      Eat meat and don't eat sugar or much bread. Walk every day. If the walking gets tough, take a bit of whiskey and walk anyway. I figure I have at least another good decade in me, although my eyes aren't what they used to be. Certainly, it is painful to lose friends and relatives over the years, and it is especially sad to see the children of friends who then became friends die of "old age". But life is still precious, and you kids have no idea how wonderful it is.

      Plus, we old people are keeping some amazing secrets from you. Hurry up with that immortality serum and we might decide to share.

    10. Re:Everything good is bad for you by Beeftopia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, different ancient populations ate differently.

      Inuits (Eskimos) eat an extremely high protein, high fat diet. Not much farming in the far north.

      Nordic populations (Finns and Swedes for example) eat a diet different from Spaniards, who eat a diet different from sub-Saharan Africans who eat a diet different from southern Asians.

      It seems to me that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to diet. One needs to understand one's genetic ancestry, and then using that as a guide, figure out what's best for that person. What might be too much protein for a vegetarian south Asian farmer might not be enough for a Finn or an Inuit hunter. What might be too much fat or carbohydrate for one population might not be enough for another.

  2. Bollocks by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These finding are contradicted by the epidemiological evidence. The hazards of low salt are immediate and deadly. The hazards of high salt are hard to detect. The chances that there are other variables at work are high. Just because you have a pathway, it doesn't mean you've identified all the regulatory mechanisms.
       

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  3. Eat well and die young by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    90 years of whole wheat is indistinguishable from death.

  4. Re:most salt is not real salt anyway by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you saying "processed" salt doesn't have sodium chloride? Or that natural salt doesn't?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  5. Mother Nature needs to give us kidneys...oh, wait by Comrade+Ogilvy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem with these guesses about salt is our kidneys are specifically designed for actively and precisely maintaining homeostasis of certain key ions (Na, Cl, K, Ca) in the bloodstream. If it weren't we would simply die within days or sooner. Moderate salt with good hydration is probably not harmful at all -- it is probably good for you as it helps the kidneys filter other bad stuff out. Low salt could easily be bad for you.

    High salt plus low hydration might be bad. But where exactly is the line where moderate salt becomes high? Guessing based on what we eat is for witch doctors.

    So I would like to see an actual study showing how adding/subtracting a little salt changes anything measurable at all about the long term serum average, otherwise I am inclined to believe that this guess is baloney. We are not walking petri dishes.

    (There are specific diseases where controlling salts are very important, but that is a separate issue.)

  6. Don't believe everything you read. by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

    You should always take news like this with 64.79891 mg of NaCl.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  7. Too much salt by miltonw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It isn't salt, it's too much salt. No one needs the huge levels of sodium chloride that is now added to most processed foods. It is there because it "tastes good" while making you want to eat more and more.

    I had to give up salt completely some years ago and it took months before I regained my ability to taste unsalted food. Now, food without salt actually tastes much better that the over-salted crap served to us everywhere.

    Yes, the body requires some sodium chloride but the amount is very small. What most people ingest is far, far beyond that. As with just about anything, too much will harm you.

  8. Re:most salt is not real salt anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Been an engineer for a salt company for 20 years, the processing of salt is to take out the few impurities there are, we do not really add anything at all. There is no bleach, you do not clean 316SS that way when working with salt, salt kills bacteria as well as bleach could. You can easily get non iodine salt, the only additive is a inert agent to help it keep flowing in high moisture... (think of the rice in shakers, yeah its like that). "Natural" salt and Sea Salt, which we do make, is basically less clean, kinda nasty... but the crystal size and organization is different so it gives a different taste, quite nice on some things. But it is still nasty compared to good ole processed table salt, 99.9% pure and the last 0.1 is mostly encapsulated sand and our flow agent. Salt is CHEAP, we used to joke when crackpots (sorry valued customers) sent us complaints we were "cutting" the salt with something because it tasted less salty.... we looked it up, sand is much more expensive, not sure what we could cut it with that is cheaper! Oh and while we are at it, if anyone ever throws out salt due to a best buy date I will find them and smack them, we are forec to put those on, most of the US salt is at least 10k years old, it is not gonna bad anytime soon.

  9. Re:most salt is not real salt anyway by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Informative

    You know, when you are asking for a Citation like a smart-ass, maybe you should first make sure there isn't one to be found by searching the very site you're posting on.

  10. Hmm by Frankie70 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Taubes on Salt - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opinion/sunday/we-only-think-we-know-the-truth-about-salt.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    While, back then, the evidence merely failed to demonstrate that salt was harmful, the evidence from studies published over the past two years actually suggests that restricting how much salt we eat can increase our likelihood of dying prematurely. Put simply, the possibility has been raised that if we were to eat as little salt as the U.S.D.A. and the C.D.C. recommend, weâ(TM)d be harming rather than helping ourselves.