Experts Say Consuming High-Sodium Foods Can Cause Slow Thinking

JAKARTA - In addition to sugar, salt is also relied on as a kitchen seasoning that can enhance the taste of food. If consumed in normal doses, this is fine. However, if excessive it can potentially invite hypertension, even worse it interferes with brain function.

Launching from ABC.Net, Friday, January 23, researchers found that salt can cause cognitive disorders in the rat brain and this can also happen to humans. If you continue to consume a lot of salt, it is equivalent to opening up opportunities to reduce brain function.

Costantino Iadecola, director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, said that when researchers fed rats a salt intake of 8 to 16 times more than their normal intake, it didn't take long for researchers to observe the behavioral effects on the rats.

"After about three months, the mice go crazy," said Dr. Iadecola. "The mice become very attractive, they gradually lose the ability to recognize normal objects."

"The mice also find it difficult to find a comfortable place to live. They lose the ability to make nests," continued Dr. Iadecola.

Research published in the journal Nature Neuroscience also shows that humans will experience a similar response if they consume foods with high levels of sodium or salt.

According to available data, Australians apparently tend to consume twice as much salt as the recommended daily portion. Most salt intake comes from processed food sources. Dr. Iadecola said, two teaspoons of salt that the average Australian eats every day can be at risk of lowering brain function in the long term. Usually, the maximum limit of salt intake in a person's body is only 1 teaspoon or equivalent to 2,400mg per day.

However, the ability to think slowly may not be as fast as it appears in mice. "The effects may take years and perhaps decades, compared to mice that are only a few months old," said Dr. Iadecola.

Professor Bryce Vissel, director of the neuroscience center at the University of Technology Sydney, also explained that high sodium consumption can cause cognitive dysfunction. "This suggests that salt causes deep immune changes in the gut, so that the brain effect becomes autoimmune," he said.