Abstract of study showing that increased sodium levels= increase in MS activity

[Lazarus]

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J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2014 Aug 28. pii: jnnp-2014-307928. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2014-307928. [Epub ahead of print]
Sodium intake is associated with increased disease activity in multiple sclerosis.
Farez MF1, Fiol MP1, Gaitán MI1, Quintana FJ2, Correale J1.
Author information

Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Recently, salt has been shown to modulate the differentiation of human and mouse Th17 cells and mice that were fed a high-sodium diet were described to develop more aggressive courses of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. However, the role of sodium intake in multiple sclerosis (MS) has not been addressed. We aimed to investigate the relationship between salt consumption and clinical and radiological disease activity in MS.
METHODS:
We conducted an observational study in which sodium intake was estimated from sodium excretion in urine samples from a cohort of 70 relapsing-remitting patients with MS who were followed for 2 years. The effect of sodium intake in MS disease activity was estimated using regression analysis. We then replicated our findings in a separate group of 52 patients with MS.
RESULTS:
We found a positive correlation between exacerbation rates and sodium intake in a multivariate model adjusted for age, gender, disease duration, smoking status, vitamin D levels, body mass index and treatment. We found an exacerbation rate that was 2.75-fold (95% CI 1.3 to 5.8) or 3.95-fold (95% CI 1.4 to 11.2) higher in patients with medium or high sodium intakes compared with the low-intake group. Additionally, individuals with high-sodium intake had a 3.4-fold greater chance of developing a new lesion on the MRI and on average had eight more T2 lesions on MRI. A similar relationship was found in the independent replication group.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our results suggest that a higher sodium intake is associated with increased clinical and radiological disease activity in patients with MS.

KEYWORDS:
Multiple Sclerosis

PMID: 25168393 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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[renee]

Potato chips.

My big jones, my primo gorge food.
Thank goodness there are low fat/salt p-chips.
Trader Joe's has some good ones called "Low-Guilt"

Let's take the guilt out of eating!!!
Sheesh, what an unproductive, stifling thing guilt generally is.
Guilt just perpetuates itself.
Rantarama.

Done.

[Lazarus]

At the farmers' market when I sell my organic veggies...

...when I am selling exquisite and unique organic vegetables there are so many customers that --most customers-- who talk about supposed health benefits of what I am selling rather than the flavor of food. People sound self righteous and frankly, silly, repeating information they read and not information that they understand.

I usually try and say that a pint of blueberries will not make them healthy. It is a way of eating that might help their health....a weaning away from all the sauces we load on food so that our taste buds become so developed that we actually taste the flavor in the food itself.

[Sunshine]

This seems like junk science. It may be that people with high sodium diets have something else in common that causes relapse. Example: they may have eaten more processed foods, or higher saturated fats, and so forth. Might not be the sodium per SE, but the entire nutritional profile, that causes relapse.

[agate]

Maybe we should define what is meant by "junk science." I'm not sure how junky the science is if it gets published in a well-known scientific journal, and there is this article in HealthDay.com where the authors talk about their results and stress repeatedly how limited their findings are:

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[Sunshine]

Maybe we should define what is meant by "junk science." I'm not sure how junky the science is if it gets published in a well-known scientific journal, and there is this article in HealthDay.com where the authors talk about their results and stress repeatedly how limited their findings are:

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

I am glad to hear they stress the limitations of their study
Correlation is not causation, after all!