Article from WeChat public account:Academic latitude (ID: Global_Academia)< Span class="text-remarks">, the header is from: Oriental IC
As everyone pays more attention to diet and health, many people are beginning to realize that eating too salty is prone to cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and stroke. But eating too much salt has a health threat that doesn’t stop there!
A new study published online in the leading academic journal Nature has confirmed that excessive salt intake is detrimental to brain cognitive function. Animal experiments have shown that the brain is associated with dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) after ingesting a very high salt diet. An abnormality occurs in a key protein. The findings remind us that avoiding a high-salt diet may help maintain cognitive function.
In this study, researchers at the
After several weeks of high salt intake, the tau protein in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of mice is hyperphosphorylated (Source: References [1] ])
Sure enough, when the researchers examined the cognitive abilities of mice, those with too much salt intake showed cognitive decline in tests that identified new objects and labyrinths.
Next, the research team explored why the high-salt diet causes abnormal phosphorylation of tau. In the past, Professor Costantino Iadecola, who led the study, found that too much salt intake can affect the production of nitric oxide in vascular endothelial cells. This gas can relax blood vessels and increase blood flow.
In this study, they found that when the high-salt diet caused a decrease in nitric oxide, it activates an enzyme CDK5 involved in tau phosphorylation in nerve cells.
▲Inhibition of CD with inhibitor TFP5The role of K5 can improve the performance of mice in cognitive behavioral testing (Source: References [1])
So, will the recovery of nitric oxide synthesis help to alleviate the problems caused by high salt?
The results of the experiment quickly confirmed their conjecture. When L-arginine, which helps to supplement nitric oxide, is added to drinking water, aggregation of phosphorylated tau is reduced, and cognitive performance in high-salt diet mice is restored.
These results also suggest that vascular dysfunction and neurodegenerative diseases common in elderly dementia such as AD may be related to eating habits.
▲ “Chinese Dietary Guidelines (2016)” suggests that healthy adults should not eat more than 6 grams of salt per day (Source: Pixabay)
The authors pointed out at the end of the paper that the high-salt diet fed to mice in the experiment has reached 3-5 times the recommended daily salt intake of humans, but the experimental data is sufficient to show that there is a gap between eating habits and cognitive health. Unknown associated pathways in the past.
A recent review published in the Journal of the American Heart Association pointed out that Chinese people have the highest salt intake in the world, and adults consume an average of more than 10 grams of salt per day, which is the recommended intake. More than 2 times; the salt intake of children aged 3 to 6 years has reached the highest recommended amount for adults recommended by WHO. Therefore, the impact of high-salt diet on brain cognition is particularly worthy of attention.
References:
[1] Giuseppe Faraco et al., (2019) Dietary salt promotes cognitive impairment
through tau phosphorylation. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1688-z
[2] Giuseppe Faraco et al., (2018) Dietary salt promotes neurovascular and cognitive dysfunction through a gut-initiated TH17 response. Nature Neuroscience. DOI: https://doi .org/10.1038/s41593-017-0059-z
Article from WeChat public account:Academic latitude (ID: Global_Academia), the header is from: Oriental IC