Despite being bad for the health, high-salt diets can help keep invading microbes at bay, according to the findings of a new study.

The study was conducted by researchers from Universitätsklinikum Regensburg and Universität Regensburg. Previous studies have established that most people consume more salt that the recommended amount, leading to higher risk of stroke and heart diseases. However, researchers of the new study point out that a high-salt diet does have some benefits after all. The researchers found that the biological advantage dietary salt offers is that it defends the body against invading microbes.

The study conducted on mice observed that salt increased sodium accumulation in the skin, which boosts immune responses to skin-infecting parasites. The findings hint that salt has therapeutic potential to promote host defense against microbial infections.

"Up to now, salt has been regarded as a detrimental dietary factor; it is clearly known to be detrimental for cardiovascular diseases, and recent studies have implicated a role in worsening autoimmune diseases," first study author Jonathan Jantsch, a microbiologist at Universitätsklinikum Regensburg and Universität Regensburg, said in a press statement.

"Our current study challenges this one-sided view and suggests that increasing salt accumulation at the site of infections might be an ancient strategy to ward off infections, long before antibiotics were invented."

Researchers also highlighted that although there is overwhelming evidence linking dietary salt to disease in humans, the potential evolutionary advantage of storing so much salt in the body has not been clear. During the current study, researchers noticed an unusually high amount of sodium in the infected skin of mice that had been bitten by cage mates.

To investigate this further, researchers examined the link between infection and salt accumulation in the skin. They found that infected areas in patients with bacterial skin infections also showed remarkably high salt accumulation. Moreover, experiments in mice showed that a high-salt diet boosted the activity of immune cells called macrophages, thereby promoting the healing of feet that were infected with a protozoan parasite called Leishmania major.

"A further understanding of the regulatory cascades might not only help to design drugs that specifically enhance local salt deposition and help to combat infectious diseases, but also may lead to novel strategies to mobilize sodium stores in the aging population and prevent cardiovascular disease," Jantsch said. "We also think that local application of high-salt-containing wound dressings and the development of other salt-boosting antimicrobial therapies might bear therapeutic potential."

Despite these new findings, the study authored urged caution while opting for a high-salt diet to reap health benefits. They highlighted that the new findings doesn’t rule out the fact that extensive consumption of salt can lead to other health complications.

Findings of the study were published online in the journal Cell Metabolism. The study was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the German Ministry for Economics and Technology, the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research Erlangen, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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