A Salty, Western Diet May Delay Puberty

Does your child eat a lot of salt? Then their puberty may be delayed. Scientists have discovered that high salt diets may delay puberty.

The salt content in western diets is continuing to increase. That's why researchers decided to see what effect this may have on health. They examined young rats a high salt diet, which was equivalent to three or four times the recommended daily allowance for humans. They found that the rats that were fed a high salt diet had a significant delay in reaching puberty compared to those fed a normal salt diet.

"Our work shows that high levels of fat and salt have opposite effects on reproductive health," said Dori Pitynski, one of the researchers, in a news release. "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. Our research highlights for the first time that the salt content of a diet has more significant effect on reproductive health than the fat content."

Sodium is found naturally in a variety of food, including milk, cream and eggs. However, it's found in much higher amounts in processed foods, such as bread, bacon, snack foods and in condiments.

"Current salt-loading in Western populations has the potential to drastically affect reproductive health, and warrants further attention," said Pitynski.

The findings reveal that high salt content may drastically impact reproductive health and puberty. This is especially important to note as diets continue to add more and more salt.

The findings were presented at the European Congress of Endocrinology in Dublin.

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