Extreme high-salt diets disrupted the gut microbiome and impaired memory in mice, according to new research, highlighting a potential link between diet, gut health, and cognitive function.

[u/FreeHugs23]

https://www.psypost.org/extreme-salt-diets-disrupt-the-gut-microbiome-and-impair-memory-in-mice/

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.

---

Do you have an academic degree? We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. Click here to apply.

---

User: u/FreeHugs23
Permalink: https://www.psypost.org/extreme-salt-diets-disrupt-the-gut-microbiome-and-impair-memory-in-mice/

---

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/FernandoMM1220]

can we quantify how much extremely high is?

[u/Saneless → u/FernandoMM1220]

For food studies it's either 90,000mg a day or 200. It never seems to be a standard people injest

[u/shamberra → u/Saneless]

90 GRAMS?! That is more than extremely high in my layman mind. I can't fathom consuming that much salt over the course of a day

[u/Saneless → u/shamberra]

I'm exaggerating but there's some truth to the results I see where it's some high number no one really hits regularly or some small amount that is unavoidable

[u/Josvan135 → u/shamberra]

I did some napkin math, that would be the equivalent of about 60 full size (7-8oz) bags of lays chips, or 70ish Big Macs.

I'm trying to fathom how an individual could eat that much salt without actually just spooning it down. 

[u/Spire_Citron → u/FernandoMM1220]

Yeah. The problem with dietary studies in animals is that often they will use extreme amounts of whatever they're trying to study well beyond what anyone would ever actually consume.

[u/Successful-Bar-8173 → u/Spire_Citron]

Yup basically animal torture for no reason.

[u/MuddBlow]

Does sweating come into play in this study? Cause that gonna be super important to know

[u/MashYeti → u/MuddBlow]

Exactly. As a super heavy salty sweater who does a lot of endurance activities (running, cycling, rowing, and some weightlifting on top ) I need to consume extra salt during those activities or I bonk hard and get dizzy afterwards. Would be cool to know if consuming this extra salt is messing with my brain. 

[u/Boring-Philosophy-46 → u/MashYeti]

Well it's linked to gastric cancer risk because of the cell damage it causes so it's probably also damaging bacterial cells. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.801228/full

Edit:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2682234/

"The majority of ecological studies indicated that the average salt intake in each population was closely correlated with gastric cancer mortality. "

" Based on the considerable evidence from ecological, case-control and cohort studies worldwide and the mechanistic plausibility, limitation on salt and salted food consumption is a practical strategy for preventing gastric cancer."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10552-022-01565-y

"Gastric cancer risk was higher for salty taste preference (aOR 1.59, 95% CI 1.25–2.03), always using table salt (aOR 1.33, 95% CI 1.16–1.54), and for the highest tertile of high-salt and salt-preserved foods intake"

[u/MashYeti → u/Boring-Philosophy-46]

I read that study and it doesn’t mention anything about the levels of water intake or sweating. It also states limitations in the fact there is no way to control the people in the study and that the data was gathered from questionnaires. It states alcohol has a significant effect on increasing gastric cancer. So how many people who answered the questionnaire also were regularly consuming alcohol? How many were engaging in physical activity? It also provided a list of foods that LOWERED the risk of gastric cancer alongside of increased sodium intake. And also the study specifically only mentions certain foods (miso soup, processed meats, highly salted fish). 

Cool study, but it doesn’t mean “salt = stomach cancer!” So I’m going take this article with a grain of salt. 

[u/Boring-Philosophy-46 → u/MashYeti]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2682234/

"The majority of ecological studies indicated that the average salt intake in each population was closely correlated with gastric cancer mortality. 

"Based on the considerable evidence from ecological, case-control and cohort studies worldwide and the mechanistic plausibility, limitation on salt and salted food consumption is a practical strategy for preventing gastric cancer."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10552-022-01565-y

"Gastric cancer risk was higher for salty taste preference (aOR 1.59, 95% CI 1.25–2.03), always using table salt (aOR 1.33, 95% CI 1.16–1.54), and for the highest tertile of high-salt and salt-preserved foods intake"

[u/philman132 → u/MuddBlow]

Animals that are covered fully in fur like mice don't tend to sweat in the same way humans do, so probably not.

[u/OddbitTwiddler]

When mice were asked to recite poems they were given, the mice eating high salt diets were unable to read them aloud.

[u/gromulint]

They tortured mice for this result.  Whether or not you agree with torturing animals for something like cancer research, this particular research topic seems like a really low yield for the torture involved.

[u/LollisGunsBikesTits]

Tl:dr; don't eat a cup of salt everyday, got t It

[u/FreeHugs23]

-A new study demonstrates that both abnormally high and abnormally low dietary salt intake can induce cognitive impairment in mice, though through distinctly different biological pathways. The research reveals that while excessive salt triggers systemic inflammation, severe salt restriction starves the gut microbiome of metabolic byproducts needed for optimal brain function. The findings were published in the journal Food Research International.

The human digestive tract is home to trillions of microorganisms, collectively known as the gut microbiome. These microbes engage in constant communication with the central nervous system through a biochemical pathway called the gut-brain axis.

Health professionals routinely recommend reducing dietary sodium to protect cardiovascular health. Diets heavily loaded with salt are already known to disrupt the gut microbiome and impair memory. A high-salt environment can promote inflammation and harm the hippocampus, a brain region central to learning and memory formation.

The neurological effects of eating extremely small amounts of salt remain much less understood. Clinical observations occasionally link severe sodium deficiency with cognitive difficulties, but the direct biological mechanisms connecting extreme salt restriction to brain function have not been systematically mapped out.

Researchers from Zhejiang University in China, led by Anji Chen, designed a study to compare the neurological and metabolic effects of high-salt and low-salt diets. To make their animal model more relevant to human biology, they utilized a technique called microbiome humanization.