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Autoimmune diseases can be caused by overly salty foods
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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European scientists have reported that excessive consumption of table salt may be one of the reasons for the rapid development of an autoimmune disease. Among the most common autoimmune diseases, doctors named multiple sclerosis, asthma, and eczema.
Recent studies have helped scientists from the US and Germany discover a connection between the development of autoimmune diseases and regular consumption of large amounts of salt. At the moment, doctors are trying to find out whether salty food can actually cause serious diseases associated with immune system disorders.
Modern medicine considers autoimmune diseases to be a number of diseases that develop due to the unnatural production of autoimmune antibodies or the proliferation of natural killers (killer cells) in opposition to healthy cells of a living organism. The diseases are associated with a disruption of the body's immune system or one of its components. T-lymphocytes are almost always involved in the development of autoimmune diseases (when an autoimmune disease occurs, the functions of this group of cells slow down, and the development of the immune response is inhibited).
Autoimmune diseases are also characterized by the fact that the function of T-helpers (the so-called helper lymphocytes) is enhanced, which leads to an excessive immune reaction to one's own antigens. Any of these processes is considered a serious disorder of the human immune system.
Researchers from universities in Germany and the United States, while conducting scientific experiments, paid attention to cells that participate in inflammatory processes in people susceptible to autoimmune diseases. Scientists found that regulars at fast food establishments had an excess of cells in their bodies that “attacked” their own bodies during the inflammatory process.
Researchers link fast food, which contains too much table salt, and the risk of developing autoimmune diseases. Research has shown that excess salt disrupts the immune system. Scientists conducted several experiments on small rodents and the results showed that mice that ate excessively salty food had several times more inflammatory processes in the body.
Over the past few decades, the number of recorded autoimmune diseases has increased in the United States, and scientists attribute this to the widespread consumption of fast food products, which almost no one can do without in everyday life.
The most common disease is multiple sclerosis, which, if left untreated, poses a danger to human life.
Most often, autoimmune diseases are chronic, with different periods of development, exacerbations and possible remissions. Reactions that accompany the intake of any medications or are a side effect of another disease can be short-term. The authors of the study continue to study the effect of table salt on the development of autoimmune reactions in the body and the role of T-helper lymphocytes in inflammatory processes. The data obtained after the end of the experiment with rodents allow us to talk about the effect of salt on the behavior of the immune system, but the participants in the scientific experiment continue to work and are in no hurry to draw any definite conclusions.
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