New salt link to disease

Thursday March 7th, 2013

Taking too much salt has been linked to high blood pressure - but now researchers say it may also be linked to a whole range of immune system diseases.

Multiple sclerosis and the skin disease psoriasis are among conditions that might be triggered by excessive salt consumption.

Researchers in the USA and Germany have found that too much salt can stimulate immune cell components, T cells, linked to the development of these autoimmune diseases.

Reporting in Nature, the researchers say the findings, which come from laboratory research on mice, may help explain the increasing rates of some of these conditions in the last century.

Researcher Professor David Hafler, of Yale University, USA, said: "These are not diseases of bad genes alone or diseases caused by the environment, but diseases of a bad interaction between genes and the environment."

Researcher Professor Jens Titze of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, added: "It would be interesting to find out if patients with psoriasis can alleviate their symptoms by reducing their salt intake."

And fellow researcher Dr Markus Kleinewietfeld added: "The development of autoimmune diseases is a very complex process which depends on many genetic and environmental factors.

"Therefore, only further studies under less extreme conditions can show the extent to which increased salt intake actually contributes to the development of autoimmune diseases."

Sodium Chloride Drives Autoimmune Disease by the Induction of Pathogenic Th17 Cells. Nature 6 March 2013; doi.org/10.1038/nature11868

Tags: Allergies & Asthma | Brain & Neurology | Diet & Food | Europe | North America

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