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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)."

10 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 Dantoo · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    3. 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.
    4. 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.

  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. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.