A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine follows up on the revelation back in March that seems to indicate that salt, any salt, not just “refined” salt but also fancy pink himalayan salt, may be triggering our rash of autoimmune diseases. Yes, its the chips, and the bread (bread can contain a spooky amount of salt) and pizza and the nuts and the take-out and the frozen dinners and anything else we eat to save time.
Now there were a few limitations to the results. First of all they only showed it worked in a mouse model. Mice are a great place to start and mouse models are worthy of attention, but we are not mice. It needs further research. Second, the pathway that it interferes with is especially problematic for people with MS, type 1 diabetes, RA or psoriasis. I am not sure that these t17 helper cells are necessarily the driver for allergies and while my immunology class is pretty far in the rear view mirror, t-cell problems leading to IgA disorders like celiac disease seems a bit of a stretch. My guess from reading way too much of this stuff is that this pathway will be an important driver of certain autoimmune diseases but not necessarily all autoimmune disease.
That said, is there really anyone who thinks that reducing salt intake to something like what you would actually use if you made your own food is a bad thing? Is anyone actually against this idea? I cook constantly and while I have put a tablespoon of salt into my spaghetti sauce recipe that is only because it uses about 8 lbs of meat and literally serves about 40 people. I write a food blog and I cannot remember the last time I bought a new container of salt. Literally I think it has been a year. I am not trying to avoid salt, I just don’t want my food to taste gross.
So anyway, salty processed food is bad for you. Try not to faint from shock. Even allergen-free processed food is bad for you. If you have an autoimmune disease…avoid added salt and make your own food. Eat plain whole fruits and veggies. It can’t hurt… and it might help.
Here is the article from the NIH
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/march2013/03182013autoimmune.htm
