Hello everyone I'm Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the Nutrition Diva

podcast. This week we're going to take a closer look at a fascinating study that you might have seen something about in the news recently.

It had to do with the surprising ways in which salt affects hunger and appetite.

You know, most of the warnings we hear about reducing the amount of salt in our diets

have to do with reducing the risks related to high blood pressure.

But this new study suggests another reason that some people may want to curtail their sodium intake.

Eating salty foods may make you hungrier.

I've always suspected that salty foods might lead you to eat more than you otherwise would

simply because they can be really tasty.

For example, I'm likely to eat more salted nuts than unsalted nuts.

Even though I enjoy the flavor of unsalted nuts, somehow salty nuts are just more compelling.

And so instead of having a handful and feeling satisfied as I might with unsalted

almonds or cashews I just want to keep eating salty nuts. In fact one of the

things that I often suggest for people who find it difficult to observe

reasonable portion control when eating nuts is to switch over to the unsalted variety.

But this recent study found something even more interesting and way more complicated.

This study was done on a small group of Russian cosmonauts who were living in a simulated space capsule as training for a long

mission.

And over the course of the study, the researchers changed up the amount of salt in the cosmonauts

diets, ranging from a low sodium diet of around 2,300 milligrams per day

to a more typical intake of around 3,500 milligrams per day,

up to a peak of 4,800 milligrams per day, up to a peak of 4,800 milligrams of sodium per day.

...