Eating more salt makes you less thirsty and burns fat
Eating salt is bad for you. So goes the message that has been hammered into us for an age. Salt improves the taste of things but a cost to your health. Eating too much salt means dying younger. But more research tells us that science is not settled. This is true to such a degree that we know learn that eating salt makes us less thirsty.
The New York Times reports:
The crew members were increasing production of glucocorticoid hormones, which influence both metabolism and immune function.
To get further insight, [Dr. Jens Titze, now a kidney specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research in Erlangen, Germany] began a study of mice in the laboratory. Sure enough, the more salt he added to the animals’ diet, the less water they drank. And he saw why.
The animals were getting water — but not by drinking it. The increased levels of glucocorticoid hormones broke down fat and muscle in their own bodies. This freed up water for the body to use.
But that process requires energy, Dr. Titze also found, which is why the mice ate 25 percent more food on a high-salt diet. The hormones also may be a cause of the strange long-term fluctuations in urine volume.
Scientists knew that a starving body will burn its own fat and muscle for sustenance. But the realization that something similar happens on a salty diet has come as a revelation.
Eat what you like, then.
Posted: 10th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
