[LifeStyle] This is what you should not take if you want to have strong your defenses

[#Steeven.™]

In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, it is important to maintain the immune system in the best possible way. Evidence shows that taking too much salt is really harmful

Many factors make some people more vulnerable to virus or bacterial infections than others. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, any data, any investigation that shows how to strengthen our defenses, is welcome. And, in that sense, we are in luck, waiting for everyone to receive the vaccine.

Science has long recognized that the immune system evolved to protect organisms from invading pathogens. A network of pro and anti-inflammatory cell types equipped with special effector molecules (that perform a specific function in response to a stimulus; the term is usually used to describe cells of the immune system) ensures efficient removal of intruders such as viruses and bacteria.

"We have been able to show, for the first time, that excessive salt intake also weakens an important arm of the immune system"

However, imbalances can lead to an excessive response of effector cells causing autoimmune or allergic diseases. And as Ralf Willebrand and Markus Kleinewietfeld acknowledge, in an article published in 'Immunology': “The interaction of genetic and environmental factors contributes to autoimmune diseases and recent studies provided evidence of the impact of eating habits on immune status and related disorders. . Western societies have experienced a change in lifestyle associated with changes in food consumption, such as the increase in salt ”. And they insist: "Now we know that salt has an impact on the function of immune cells with negative effects on the appearance and progression of diseases such as hypertension, obesity, cancer, metabolic syndrome and autoimmune diseases."

And to this is added another study, under the leadership of the University Hospital of Bonn (Germany), which corroborates this statement.

 

The data
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "it is estimated that each year 2.5 million deaths could be prevented if global salt intake were reduced to the recommended level."

Speaking to Alimente, Dr. Domingo Carrera, an expert in Nutrition at the Medical-Surgical Center (CMED), clarifies: "Salt intake should be 5 g / day. This corresponds to two level teaspoons of salt coffee a day. But the average is 8-10 g / day in the po[CENSORED]tion. "

The research, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, found that mice fed a high-salt diet suffer much more serious bacterial infections. Human volunteers who consumed an additional six grams of the seasoning per day also showed pronounced immune deficiencies. This amount corresponds to the salt content of two fast foods.

It is well known that we raise the salt shaker higher than we should, so it is important to know these statements. "We have been able to show, for the first time, that excessive salt intake also significantly weakens an important arm of the immune system," explains Professor Dr. Christian Kurts from the Institute for Experimental Immunology at the University of Bonn.

This finding is unexpected, as some studies point in the opposite direction. “For example, infections with certain skin parasites in laboratory animals heal significantly faster if they eat a diet high in salt: macrophages, which are immune cells that attack, eat and digest parasites, are particularly active in the presence of salt. . Several specialists concluded from this observation that sodium chloride has a generally immunological effect ”.

 

The skin serves as a reservoir of salt
However, "our results show that this generalization is not accurate," emphasizes Katarzyna Jobin, lead author of the study, who has since transferred to the University of Würzburg.

There are two reasons for this: First, the body keeps the salt concentration in the blood and in the various organs largely constant. Otherwise, fundamental biological processes would be affected. The only major exception is the skin - it functions as the body's store of sodium. This is why its additional intake works so well for some skin conditions.

However, other parts of the body are not exposed to the additional salt that is consumed with food. Instead, it is filtered by the kidneys and excreted in the urine. And this is where the second mechanism comes into play: the kidneys have a sodium chloride sensor that activates the function of salt excretion. However, as an undesirable side effect, this sensor also causes so-called glucocorticoids to accumulate in the body. And these, in turn, inhibit the function of granulocytes, the most common type of immune cell in the blood.

 

'Carrion' cells
Granulocytes, like macrophages, are 'scavenger' cells. However, they do not attack parasites, but mainly bacteria. If they don't do this to a sufficient degree, the infections progress much more severely. "We were able to show this in mice with a listeria infection," explains Dr. Jobin. "We had previously put some of them on a high-salt diet. In the spleen and liver of these animals we count 100 to 1,000 times the number of pathogens that cause disease. Listeria is a bacterium found, for example, in contaminated food and can cause fever, vomiting and sepsis. Urinary tract infections also healed much more slowly in laboratory mice fed a high-sodium diet, "he adds.

Sodium chloride also appears to have a negative effect on the human immune system. "We examined the volunteers who consumed six grams of salt in addition to their daily intake," says Professor Kurts. "This is roughly the amount in two fast foods, that is, two hamburgers and two servings of French fries." After a week, the scientists took blood from their subjects and examined the granulocytes. The immune cells coped much worse with the bacteria after the test subjects began eating a high-salt diet.

In human volunteers, excessive salt intake also resulted in increased glucocorticoid levels. Not surprisingly, this suppresses the immune system - the better-known glucocorticoid cortisone is traditionally used to suppress inflammation. "Only through investigations of an entire organism were we able to discover the complex control circuits that lead from salt intake to this immunodeficiency," Kurts emphasizes. "Therefore, our work also illustrates the limitations of purely cell culture experiments."

In the opinion of Dr. Carrera, “although the studies so far are preclinical, that is, carried out in laboratory animals and not in humans, changes have been seen in the immune system when consuming excessive salt. On the one hand, it has been seen that the excessive consumption of sodium chloride can stimulate the production and activity of T Helper 17 lymphocytes up to 10 times. This causes the immune response to be greater than normal and worsens the evolution of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, etc. On the other hand, it has been seen that it reverses the effect of regulatory T lymphocytes and increases the action of activating T lymphocytes ”.

Furthermore, he defends, “it decreases the activation of M1 macrophages responsible for eliminating pathogens. And it has also been seen to reduce the function of granulocytes, which are responsible for specifically killing bacteria. All of this increases the presence of glucocorticoids in the body. That salt, on the one hand, reduces the defenses against pathogens, mainly bacteria, and, on the other hand, increases the action of the immune system on T lymphocytes and inflammation is greater in autoimmune processes ”.

 

How to reduce salt in the pandemic
According to Dr. Carrera, “people tend to take more if they increase their intake of fast and processed food, since with two meals (hamburger and french fries) the suggested level of salt is already reached. If consumption increases in the pandemic of fast food, processed foods, cans, frozen foods, cartons, industrial pastries, 'snacks' or packaged and bagged products, the average consumption of salt will increase ”.

We should, he insists, “despite difficulties, try to consume fresh and home-cooked products. Do not abuse beef and seafood, as they contain sodium inside. Reduce the intake of food prepared in restaurants, since they put more salt than we use at home. As well as eating natural or roasted nuts without salt ”.