A recent study has discovered that high salt diet could negatively impact brain health, thus increasing the chances of chronic neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease. It has been already proved that too much salt intake will result in stroke and heart attack, and with this new discovery, it has become evident that salt-high diet will affect the mind as well.
The study, led by Dr. Constantino Iadecola from Weill Cornell University, has been published in the Nature Neuroscience Journal.
In the study, experiments conducted on mice revealed that high-salt diet will result in cognitive impairments and experts suggested that it could be the same for humans. During the study, researchers fed the mice eight to 16 times their normal salt intake, and within three months time, the mice became demented.
"After about three months, the mice became demented. Mice are very curious and they like to look for new things, and so over time the mouse lost the ability to identify a normal object," said the lead author Constantino Iadecola.
The researchers revealed that mice who were fed with high salt also failed to build a nest which it used to do daily before the experiment. After three months, researchers put the mice in a cage and asked to find a quiet spot, but it failed to identify the quiet spot which indicated the weakening of its cognitive abilities.
Interestingly, once the mice were taken off their salty diets for four weeks, their brain scans revealed normal endothelial function and healthy blood flow. According to the researcher, this reversal of brain health indicates that healthy lifestyle changes will bring back our body to normalcy.
During the study, the researchers also found that people in Australia often consume double the amount of recommended salt, and most of it comes from processed food. According to Constantino Iadecola, Australians consume more than two teaspoons of salt in a day, and it will negatively impact their brain health in the long run.
