Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Taste for salt can begin at birth

NEW YORK - Some people with a penchant for salty snacks may have been born with it, a new study suggests.
In a study of 41 children and teenagers who'd been born prematurely, researchers found that those who'd had low sodium levels in their blood at birth had a particular fondness for salty food.
In tests where the children could choose from salty or sweet snacks, those born with low sodium levels reached for a salty snack more often. They also consumed substantially more sodium each day, based on interviews with children and their parents.
The study also found that children with the most severe sodium deficiency at birth weighed 30 per cent more, on average, than their peers born with the highest sodium levels.
High salt intake is considered a marker for the risk of obesity, possibly because it signifies a person's consumption of calorie-dense processed foods.
It's too soon, however, to say that sodium deficiency early in life is a risk factor for obesity, according to study co-author Dr Micah Leshem of the University of Haifa in Israel.
'There is insufficient evidence for parents to take a preference for salty food resulting from early sodium loss, of itself, as a predictor of weight gain in their children,' said Dr Leshem.
All of the children in the study had been born prematurely, which increases the chances that a newborn will have low blood sodium levels.
Low birth weight itself is thought to promote excessive weight gain later in life, Dr Leshem pointed out, and this may offer a 'better explanation' for the link between early sodium deficiency and childhood weight.
He and his colleagues report their findings in the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology.
Premature newborns are at greatest risk of sodium deficiency at birth and soon after. -- REUTERS