14 DAY TRIAL // Medical experts have been telling us for decades now that, if we want to keep healthy and stay in shape, we'd better make sure we keep our daily intake of salt and fatty foods down at a minimum.
Well, leave it to a team of researchers at the University of Iowa in the US to turn this seemingly ancient piece of advice on its head. In a report published in yesterday's issue of the journal Scientific Reports, the specialists argue that eating salty foods might actually prove beneficial.
More precisely, the team of scientists says that, having toyed with the diet of several laboratory mice, they found that eating more salt can help prevent weight gain, even in the context of a high-fat diet.
Eating more salt helped the mice stay fit
In their paper in the journal Scientific Reports, the University of Iowa researchers detail that, as part of this research project, they fed groups of mice either normal food or high-fat food containing distinct levels of salt, i.e. from 0.25% to 4%.
The rodents were kept on this diet and closely monitored over a period of 16 weeks, during which time the specialists paid especially close attention to their body weight.
At the end of the study period, it was discovered that the mice kept on a high-fat, low-salt diet had gained the most weight, meaning around 15 grams (0.5 ounces). With just 5 grams (0.2 ounces) gained, the high-fat, high-salt mice were the thinnest.
A possible explanation for this outcome
The University of Iowa scientists theorize that the extra salt they were given prevented the mice's digestive tract from absorbing all the fat included in their diet. Plainly put, the excess salt meant these rodents didn't get as much calories from their meals as their peers.
“This suppression of weight gain with increased sodium was due entirely to a reduced efficiency of the digestive tract to extract calories from the food that was consumed,” said researcher Justin Grobe. “Our study shows that not all calories are created equal,” added scientist Michael Lutter.
Now, before you go running off to sprinkling salt in your coffee and on your steak, you should know that, although it might be that excess salt can prevent weight gain, the fact of the matter is that, in the case of humans, too much of it correlates with heart trouble.
Otherwise put, embracing a high-salt diet in an attempt to stave off unwanted weight gain or maybe even lose a love handle or two might not be such a good idea after all.