Too much salt in our diet could delay puberty

Research has indicated that including too much salt in our diet could be causing puberty to be delayed, whilst cutting it out from our diet completely also delays puberty.
This is significant because a late puberty onset is considered to be linked to reduced fertility and also behavioural problems, so future generations’ reproductive abilities could be affected by a high consumption of salt.
The study was undertaken by Ms Dori Pitynski and her team of researchers from the University of Wyoming in America. This new study looked at how puberty is affected by salt intake, with previous research into this area only focusing on the effects of dietary fats. They used rats as part of their investigation, and found that their puberty was delayed by consuming high levels of salt, and also consuming no salt at all.
Ms Pitynski said: “Our work shows that high levels of fat and salt have opposite effects [on] reproductive health. [A] high fat diet is thought to accelerate the onset of puberty but our work demonstrates that rats fed a high salt diet even with a high fat diet will still show a delay in puberty onset.”
The recommended daily allowance for salt, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), is 5g per day. However, in Britain, the average person consumes 8.1g of a salt per day. This is helped by its high prevalence in the Western world, in processed foods such as bread, bacon, soy sauce, stock cubes and snacks.
“Our research highlights for the first time that the salt content of a high fat diet has a more significant effect on reproductive health than the fat content,” Ms Pitynski added.
For a healthy lifestyle, it is important to limit the amount of salt in your diet. You should consume plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as reducing the amount of sugar and processed food in your diet. It is also very important to take part in regular exercise.
Although the study did not investigate the effect salt has on humans, it is common knowledge that a diet high in salt is bad for our health.