Recent quotes:

Too much salt weakens the immune system: A diet rich in salt weakens the antibacterial immune defense -- ScienceDaily

However, other parts of the body are not exposed to the additional salt consumed with food. Instead, it is filtered out by the kidneys and excreted in the urine. And this is where the second mechanism comes into play: The kidneys have a sodium chloride sensor that activates the salt excretion function. As an undesirable side effect, however, this sensor also causes so-called glucocorticoids to accumulate in the body. And these in turn inhibit the function of granulocytes, the most common type of immune cell in the blood. Granulocytes, like macrophages, are scavenger cells. However, they do not attack parasites, but mainly bacteria. If they do not do this to a sufficient degree, infections proceed much more severely. "We were able to show this in mice with a listeria infection," explains Dr. Jobin. "We had previously put some of them on a high-salt diet. In the spleen and liver of these animals we counted 100 to 1,000 times the number of disease-causing pathogens." Listeria are bacteria that are found for instance in contaminated food and can cause fever, vomiting and sepsis. Urinary tract infections also healed much more slowly in laboratory mice fed a high-salt diet.

Pruritus in Kidney Disease

he pathogenesis of UP remains largely unclear, although several theories on etiologic or contributing factors have been proposed including increased systemic inflammation; abnormal serum parathyroid hormone, calcium, and phosphorus levels; an imbalance in opiate receptors; and a neuropathic process. UP can present somewhat variably, although it tends to affect large, discontinuous, but symmetric, areas of skin and to be most symptomatic at night. A variety of alternative systemic or dermatologic conditions should be considered, especially in patients with asymmetric pruritus or other atypical features.