Salt Addiction ?

Confusing? How salt can create addiction. Most of the people around the world are addicted to salt. Thanks to the usage of salt as a preservative and taste enhancer. Salt addiction is a major problem across the world, the result of packed food culture. Most of the FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) corporate across the world relay on sugar and salt to sell their products. They often distract you from the reality with some information’s like carbo hydrates levels, Cholesterol levels, Trans fat and many other information. Did you ever noticed the quantity of added sugar or salt in the packed food items? You will never notice it because it is not available. Most of the people are aware of the sugar additions and are conscious; I want to take you to main antihero in our life “SALT.”

                During the independence struggle, In India, run a protest campaign called  “Salt Satyagraha” and known as the main driving agitation leads to the ouster of English from India. This article have nothing to do with independence, But to bring to your notice, how powerful salt is.

                Do you know how to tame wild animals and domestic animals without brute force? it’s very easy, Feed them with salted food regularly. In my native, people use the same technique to tame animals. If you feed an animal/bird with salted food, they will come back to you for the food at regular intervals. They will behave properly , they will not destroy your crops . Why animals like salted food and trust the people who gave it? Why they come back? We humans also considered in the general category of animals.

How much salt we need, nobody knows it clearly. General it claims that, Humans need sodium for survival and salts gives that. Humans are advised to consume 1500 mg of sodium amounts to 0.75 teaspoons or 3.75 grams of salt per day that includes the sodium that is naturally in the regular food you eat. (2300 mg = one teaspoon =6 grams of salt per day) however , currently The average intake of sodium is about 3400 mg, 75% of it coming from processed foods.

The body needs only a small amount of sodium (less than 500 milligrams per day) to function properly. Practically no one even comes close to eating less than that amount. In addition, healthy kidneys are great at retaining the sodium that our bodies need. There is no reliable evidence that eating less than 1,500 mg per day of sodium is a risk for the general population. There is some evidence that this may be harmful to certain patients with congestive heart failure, but those people make up only a small part of the population.

Why is salt bad for our health? Over usage of Salt contributes to a myriad of disease like Blood pressure, Stroke, Coronary Heart Disease, Stomach cancer, Osteoporosis, Obesity, Kidney Stones and Kidney Disease, Water Retention and a lot more diseases

Salt addiction All animals in the world other than humans depend on the dietary salt than added consumption of salt. All those animals survives and are health too. Researchers claim that salt is addictive in the same way as cigarettes or hard drugs, with the craving triggering the same genes, brain cells and brain connections. Salt addition affect the brain's “reward” circuit, which is part of the limbic system. Normally, the reward circuit responds to feelings of pleasure by releasing the dopamine. Dopamine creates feelings of pleasure.

For the study, scientists kept some mice on low-salt diets and gave others a salt drip. Activity in the creatures' brains was compared with that in mice that was fed normally. They also studied the brains of mice that had been starved of salt for three days and then given salty water to drink freely. When the rodents were in need of salt, brain cells made proteins more usually linked to addiction to substances such as heroin, cocaine and nicotine. The study also revealed that after salt was taken, the brain believes it has received its fix well before it should be physically possible. In other words, the changes caused by salt cravings disappeared well before the salt could have left the gut, entered the blood and got to the brain.

It’s you who can make change, Because it’s about you and your family