Too often, salt is forgotten in its shaker, but the grainy, white stuff can get strange. Its influences range from bizarre reactions inside the human body to when stars die.Salt can solve mysteries, help us explore space, and reveal Earth’s past. The most fascinating is sodium’s dual role of danger and savior: It kills millions every year but also offers a cheap weapon against infections and climate change.
Salt Is Better Than Soap
When someone arrives at the hospital, they go through debridement, which is basically the cleansing of any wounds with soap and water. Yet, thousands of patients need treatment for infections that occur after injuries are cleaned.In 2015, doctors launched a study to see if salt water might prevent this from happening. They threw the remedy in at the deep end. Forget using a saline solution on paper cuts. Surgeons used it to clean open breaks on patients from five countries.Around 2,400 people were treated with either a saline wash or soap and water. The patients were monitored for a year to document any infections. During this time, most patients who returned for additional operations were the ones who had their wounds soaped. Those who received a saltwater cleansing were less prone to infections, and their injuries healed better.The difference was so significant that if doctors adopt the salty treatment, it could lead to a cheap way to disinfect serious injuries. This is good news for Third World countries where 90 percent of the world’s traffic deaths happen.
Salt Causes Brain Inflammation
In 2018, researchers put mice on a high-salt diet and the results were scary. Mice are highly intelligent mammals, but the sodium dumbed them down. They performed badly in maze tests, and reactions to whisker stimulation or new objects were tepid.Previously, salt-induced cognitive issues were believed to happen because of high blood pressure. However, the study proved that salt could mess up important parts of the brain even without blood pressure issues.Decreased blood flow to the cortex and hippocampus impaired learning and memory. This was the end result of a crazy thing that the immune system did. When it detected too much salt in the animal’s gut, inflammatory signals were sent to the brain to compromise blood vessels and thinking.[2]The gut’s independent signaling is already responsible for other diseases linked to poor brain blood vessels—multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease. But this is the first time that salt was identified as a trigger for the dangerous inflammation.On a positive note, the mice recovered their smarts when they were switched to a low-sodium diet or gut signals were disrupted by drugs
The Salt Tooth
Many people are the delicious owner of a sweet tooth. Evidence now also points to the existence of a genetic salt tooth.In 2016, a study followed 400 locals in Kentucky who were all at risk for heart disease. They kept food diaries and gave DNA samples. Among the volunteers were individuals who carried a gene variation called TAS2R48. Previously linked to a greater sensitivity to taste bitterness, the gene also appeared to make certain people love salt.In fact, the volunteers with TAS2R48 were twice as likely to consume more than the safe amount of salt as compared to those without the gene. Worse, the gene could be why people who taste bitterness more vividly (and hate it) sprinkle even more salt to make food taste better.The discovery of the “salt tooth” gene is the first step in helping those with TAS2R48 to make food choices that won’t cause blood pressure issues, which may cause heart disease or shortened lives.
Salty Stars Die Sooner
When Simon Campbell, a stellar astrophysicist from Australia, found old research papers from the 1980s, he realized that they contradicted an established belief. This belief stated that all the stars in a given cluster evolve in a similar way.However, the 1980 papers described differences within a group called NGC 6752. Moreover, the older study claimed that sodium was responsible. Back in the day, observation techniques were not as high-tech as today. To confirm the findings, Campbell turned Chile’s powerful Very Large Telescope on the cluster, which was located 13,000 light-years away. The claims were true.Additionally, Campbell’s team discovered that sodium killed stars quicker than those that contained less salt. The low-sodium stars followed a normal evolutionary path and, at the end, burned hydrogen and helium before shedding gas and dust. What remained turned into white dwarfs.Their highly salted cousins never entered the shedding phase but died directly into white dwarfs. This was unexpected as all stars were thought to first lose mass in their final years. Though salt is definitely a factor, the exact reason why it removes an entire life phase is not entirely clear.
Apple Support Number
Salt Is Better Than Soap
When someone arrives at the hospital, they go through debridement, which is basically the cleansing of any wounds with soap and water. Yet, thousands of patients need treatment for infections that occur after injuries are cleaned.In 2015, doctors launched a study to see if salt water might prevent this from happening. They threw the remedy in at the deep end. Forget using a saline solution on paper cuts. Surgeons used it to clean open breaks on patients from five countries.Around 2,400 people were treated with either a saline wash or soap and water. The patients were monitored for a year to document any infections. During this time, most patients who returned for additional operations were the ones who had their wounds soaped. Those who received a saltwater cleansing were less prone to infections, and their injuries healed better.The difference was so significant that if doctors adopt the salty treatment, it could lead to a cheap way to disinfect serious injuries. This is good news for Third World countries where 90 percent of the world’s traffic deaths happen.
Salt Causes Brain Inflammation
In 2018, researchers put mice on a high-salt diet and the results were scary. Mice are highly intelligent mammals, but the sodium dumbed them down. They performed badly in maze tests, and reactions to whisker stimulation or new objects were tepid.Previously, salt-induced cognitive issues were believed to happen because of high blood pressure. However, the study proved that salt could mess up important parts of the brain even without blood pressure issues.Decreased blood flow to the cortex and hippocampus impaired learning and memory. This was the end result of a crazy thing that the immune system did. When it detected too much salt in the animal’s gut, inflammatory signals were sent to the brain to compromise blood vessels and thinking.[2]The gut’s independent signaling is already responsible for other diseases linked to poor brain blood vessels—multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease. But this is the first time that salt was identified as a trigger for the dangerous inflammation.On a positive note, the mice recovered their smarts when they were switched to a low-sodium diet or gut signals were disrupted by drugs
The Salt Tooth
Many people are the delicious owner of a sweet tooth. Evidence now also points to the existence of a genetic salt tooth.In 2016, a study followed 400 locals in Kentucky who were all at risk for heart disease. They kept food diaries and gave DNA samples. Among the volunteers were individuals who carried a gene variation called TAS2R48. Previously linked to a greater sensitivity to taste bitterness, the gene also appeared to make certain people love salt.In fact, the volunteers with TAS2R48 were twice as likely to consume more than the safe amount of salt as compared to those without the gene. Worse, the gene could be why people who taste bitterness more vividly (and hate it) sprinkle even more salt to make food taste better.The discovery of the “salt tooth” gene is the first step in helping those with TAS2R48 to make food choices that won’t cause blood pressure issues, which may cause heart disease or shortened lives.
Salty Stars Die Sooner
When Simon Campbell, a stellar astrophysicist from Australia, found old research papers from the 1980s, he realized that they contradicted an established belief. This belief stated that all the stars in a given cluster evolve in a similar way.However, the 1980 papers described differences within a group called NGC 6752. Moreover, the older study claimed that sodium was responsible. Back in the day, observation techniques were not as high-tech as today. To confirm the findings, Campbell turned Chile’s powerful Very Large Telescope on the cluster, which was located 13,000 light-years away. The claims were true.Additionally, Campbell’s team discovered that sodium killed stars quicker than those that contained less salt. The low-sodium stars followed a normal evolutionary path and, at the end, burned hydrogen and helium before shedding gas and dust. What remained turned into white dwarfs.Their highly salted cousins never entered the shedding phase but died directly into white dwarfs. This was unexpected as all stars were thought to first lose mass in their final years. Though salt is definitely a factor, the exact reason why it removes an entire life phase is not entirely clear.
Apple Support Number
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