Most adolescents consume as much salt as adults -- some more than twice
the recommended daily allowance -- and that high sodium intake
correlates with fatness and inflammation regardless of how many calories
they consume, researchers report.
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a study of 766 healthy teens, 97 percent self-reported exceeding the
American Heart Association's recommendation of consuming less than 1,
500 milligrams of sodium daily, according to a study in the journal
Pediatrics.
"The majority of studies in humans show the more food
you eat, the more salt you consume, the fatter you are, " said Dr.
Haidong Zhu, molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia and
Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Regents University.
"Our
study adjusted for what these young people ate and drank and there was
still a correlation between salt intake and obesity, " Zhu said.
These
high-sodium consumers also had high levels of tumor necrosis factor
alpha, which is secreted by immune cells and contributes to chronic
inflammation as well as autoimmune diseases like lupus and arthritis.
Additionally, the adolescents had high levels of leptin, a hormone
produced by fat cells that normally suppresses appetite and burns fat,
but at chronically high levels can have the opposite effects.
"Losing
weight is difficult, but hopefully more people can be successful at
reducing their sodium intake, " said Zhu, the study's corresponding
author. Reductions would result from not automatically adding salt to
food and choosing fresh fruits and vegetables over French fries and
processed meats and snacks.
"We hope these findings will
reinforce for parents and pediatricians alike that daily decisions about
how much salt children consume can set the stage for fatness, chronic
inflammation and a host of associated diseases like hypertension and
diabetes, " said study co-author Dr. Gregory Harshfield, Director of the
Georgia Prevention Center at the GRU institute.
High sodium
intake has been linked to higher weight, possibly because of increased
water retention. While the new study does not prove a causal effect, it
contributes to mounting evidence that high sodium could be a direct
cause of obesity and inflammation, Zhu and her colleagues report.
Longitudinal or randomized clinical trials are needed to clarify the
relationships, the researchers said.
"Obesity has a lot of
contributing factors, including physical inactivity, " Zhu said. "We
think that high sodium intake could be one of those factors. " Evidence
suggests one direct cause may be increasing the size of fat cells.
The
MCG study appears to be the first to use several robust measures of
fatness to improve accuracy, including magnetic resonance imaging and
dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, which also measures bone density.
Study participants were Augusta-area teens whose fitness and fatness
were being assessed by Dr. Bernard Gutin, exercise physiologist and
Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at MCG. Data was collected from
2001-05.
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