How Excessive Salt Intake Affects Your Brain
Dietary salt (sodium chloride), and specifically it’s high content, has been constantly related directly to the condition of high blood pressure. Elevated blood pressure bears a high risk of heart diseases, stroke, and kidney failure, apart from other systemic diseases. Having been studied for a long time, scientists have now started to track the changes that high salt intake brings about in the brain. Brain-related problems specifically include cerebrovascular disease, stroke and cognitive impairments. These impairments would show up in the form of memory problems, disorientation, and not being able to dress, cook, pay bills, or perform other daily activities. Studies have been performed to understand the link between salt intake with brain health, and two very distinct direct and indirect connections have been established. Direct effects on the brain A number of studies for the effects of high dietary salt on brain function were performed on mice. In order to reach a hypothesis, researchers fed mice 8 to 16 times the normal amount of dietary salt. After 12 weeks, the mice started exhibiting signs of memory impairment. They were observed to be unable to tell new and familiar objects apart. The maze test for the mice got harder for them and they were unable to build a nest as well.