Next time you order up fries, you might want to think twice before sprinkling on the sodium chloride—but not for the obvious health reasons.
Sodium is a no-no for people with hypertension or high blood pressure, but now researchers at the Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden have evidence that salt intake may also be associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA). To read more about type 2 diabetes click here, and to read more about LADA click here.
The American Journal of Managed Care reported that a team of researchers, led by Bahareh Rasouli, PhD, set out to discover the aforementioned link between salt intake and diabetes. Sodium is thought to have this effect by impacting insulin resistance or by increasing blood pressure and consequently promoting weight gain.
Scientists found that for each extra gram of sodium consumed daily, there was a 43% average increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and a 73% average increase in the risk of developing LADA.
“These findings may have important implications in the primary prevention of diabetes with adult onset.”
November is American Diabetes Month. Find out more about LADA and other forms of diabetes from the American Diabetes Association. People with the highest consumption had a 58% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared with the group that had the lowest consumption. Patients with high-risk HLA genotypes with a high consumption of sodium were four times more likely to develop LADA than participants with low consumption of sodium.
