Regardless of the amount of calories consumed, teens who eat a high-sodium diet tend to be heavier and have more body fat than those who eat less salt, according to a recent study, Reuters reported.
Researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Regents University found teens consume as much salt as adults - some more than twice the recommended daily allowance. That amount of high sodium intake correlates with fatness and inflammation.
The American Heart Association recommends that everyone keep sodium intake to less than 1,500 mg per day.
"Our study adjusted for what these young people ate and drank and there was still a correlation between salt intake and obesity," Dr. Haidong Zhu, molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia and Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Regents University, said in a statement.
The findings were published in the journal Pediatrics.
For the study, researchers examined 76 healthy teens ages 14 to 18, 97 percent self-reported exceeding the American Heart Association's recommendation of consuming less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium daily, researchers said in a press release.
Based on their findings, high sodium intake has been linked to higher weight, possibly because of increased water retention. They found that teens also had high levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha, which is secreted by immune cells and contributes to chronic inflammation as well as autoimmune diseases like lupus and arthritis.
Additionally, the adolescents had high levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that normally suppresses appetite and burns fat, but at chronically high levels can have the opposite effects.
"Losing weight is difficult, but hopefully more people can be successful at reducing their sodium intake," Zhu, the study's author, said.
People can reduce their salt intake by not automatically adding salt to food and choosing fresh fruits and vegetables over French fries and processed meats and snacks.
"We hope these findings will reinforce for parents and pediatricians alike that daily decisions about how much salt children consume can set the stage for fatness, chronic inflammation and a host of associated diseases like hypertension and diabetes," Dr. Gregory Harshfield, study co-author and director of the Georgia Prevention Center at the GRU institute, said in a statement.
