Salty foods Kuras Calcium in the Body

High-salt diet is known to trigger the issue of medical disorders such as kidney stones and osteoporosis. How did it happen and what kind of mechanism, is not yet widely known.

But recently, scientists at the University of Alberta claims to have successfully solved the puzzle through laboratory studies using animal and cell models. Principal investigator, Todd Alexander and his team have found a significant relationship between sodium and calcium.


Researchers argue that both calcium and sodium, apparently governed by the same molecule in the body. That is, when sodium intake is too high, then the body will get rid of sodium in the urine. Similarly, the calcium. When a high sodium intake, the body will deplete calcium from the body through urine, so no wonder it will trigger the appearance of kidney stones. Meanwhile, the lack of calcium reserves in the body can cause bone thinning and osteoporosis.

"When the body tries to get rid of sodium in the urine, our findings show the body also removes calcium at the same time," said Alexander, whose findings were published in the journal American Journal of Physiology - Renal Physiology.

"This is very significant, because if we eat more and more of sodium in the diet, the body also gets rid of more calcium," he added.

These findings, says Alexander, further strengthening the importance of reason have a low sodium diet and reduce intake of salt in processed foods.

Been known for years that the molecule has an important responsibility for the absorption of sodium in the body. But from the results of this study, researchers saw that the molecule also plays a role in regulating calcium levels.

"The molecule appears to have two jobs - regulate levels of calcium and sodium in the body. Our findings provide a very real biological evidence that the relationship between sodium and calcium are real and are related to each other," he explained.

A journal editorial notes written on the discovery that the molecule could be targeted by future drugs to treat kidney stones and osteoporosis.