Eating more than the suggested amount of salt interrupts the antibacterial function of a kind of immune cell, research study in mice and human beings has actually found.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), 9 out of 10 individuals in the United States consume excessive salt (salt chloride).
The Dietary Standards for Americans, which the Department of Health and Human Providers publish, suggest that people take in no greater than 2.3 grams (g) of salt per day. This quantity is roughly comparable to 5.8 g of salt, which would suit a level teaspoon.
The reason for the suggestion is that there is excellent evidence that excess dietary salt raises blood pressure, which is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
However, a new research study featuring in Science Translational Medicine recommends for the first time that such a diet could also make it harder for the body immune system to ruin bacteria in some human organs.
Scientists at the University Healthcare Facility of Bonn in Germany were amazed to discover that a high salt diet in mice worsened a common bacterial infection of the kidneys– Escherichia coli
To check whether the negative outcome of a high salt diet plan was purely a regional effect on the kidneys, the researchers contaminated the mice with Listeria and discovered that this body-wide, systemic infection was likewise worse on a high salt diet.
These findings were unexpected due to the fact that previous research study has discovered that excess dietary salt promotes healing in animals contaminated with skin parasites.
Skin acts as a reservoir for excess salt, and immune cells in the skin called macrophages are known to become more active in these salted conditions.
On the other hand, it seems that a various kind of immune reaction cell, the neutrophil, which is crucial to the body combating bacterial kidney infections, ends up being less reliable in the f