Quote:Could something as common as table salt be the key to advancing cancer treatment?
Two new studies, published on Aug. 28 in Nature Immunology, find that increased salt levels can significantly enhance immune cells’ cancer-killing abilities.
One of the two studies also showed that mice who consumed a high-salt diet also had reduced tumor sizes as a result.

“We were very surprised to see that salt instead improved their vigor, metabolism, and killing function and that this also reduced tumor growth in [the] mouse model,” Dr. Christina Zielinski, lead author of one of the studies, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Salt turned out to be a surprisingly simple [but] overlooked factor” in boosting cancer-killing cells’ effectiveness, Zielinski, who is also the Chair of Infection Immunology at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, added.
While research suggests a salt-based approach could become a valuable tool for enhancing cancer treatments, the researchers said in a press statement that they don’t recommend eating more salt in humans to activate the immune response against cancer.
Salt Enhances Killer T Cells
Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology–Hans Knöll Institute discovered that sodium, a component of table salt, can significantly boost T cell activity. T cells are a type of immune cell that fights cancer.

Killer T cells, specifically CD8+ T cells, are essential for identifying and destroying cancer cells. They recognize cancer cells by their cancer proteins and release toxic substances to kill them directly.
The study led by Zielinski showed that human breast cancer tumors have higher levels of sodium compared to healthy tissue, and adding salt helped T cells fight cancer, leading to better survival rates for patients.
T cells treated with salt were also added to tumors in cell cultures and in mice. Researchers found that salt helps T cells use sugar and amino acids better, resulting in a better ability to eliminate tumor cells.
“We were able to show that sodium enhances the immune response of CD8+ T cells,” said Chang-Feng Chu, a co-author of the study in a press release.
Further experiments showed that “pancreatic tumors shrank in the mice after we injected them with T cells pre-treated with salt,” said Chu. The salt improved T cells’ metabolism and energy levels by activating a special pump on the T cells.
“This pump enhances calcium entry into the cells, setting off signals that boost CD8+ T cell activation,” added Zielinski.
High Salt Diet Reduced Tumors in Mice
A separate study from IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Italy, led by Enrico Lugli, found that adding salt to cell cultures can awaken T cells, increasing their longevity and anti-tumor action.
Mice fed a high-salt diet also had reduced tumor growths due to improved T-cell activity, the researchers found.
Lugli stated in a press release that adding salt helps prevent cells from becoming exhausted too quickly. It also improves T cells’ metabolism and energy, making them more effective against cancer.
The researchers found that adding salt to T cells caused a similar effect as exposing the cells to immunotherapy drugs that enhanced their activity.
Study co-author, oncologist, and researcher Agnese Losurdo, said in the press release that a higher sodium level in the blood is associated with a better response to cancer immunotherapy.
However, the authors said that a high-salt diet “is not readily translatable to humans because of the consequences it could have on the cardiovascular system.”
They suggested that instead, T-cells can be exposed to high levels of salt for a short period of time before being transplanted into patients as a form of cancer therapy.
“Our results demonstrate that sodium chloride significantly impacts the functionality of CD8 T lymphocytes, crucial cells in the anti-tumor response,” Lugli said.
According to the team, while these findings are promising, they need to be confirmed in clinical settings.
Caution is Key
These findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that salt boosts the body’s immune response against cancer cells. A 2019 study from Belgium showed that a high salt diet in mice slowed tumor growth, compared to those that were not on a high salt diet.
However, caution is essential. Despite these promising results, Lugli stated that simply increasing dietary salt intake won’t have the same effects and could be harmful.
A recent study from earlier this year found that people who regularly added salt to food had a 41 percent higher risk for gastric cancer compared to those who rarely or never added salt. Research also shows that excessive salt intake can lead to cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis, and stomach cancer.
Lugli added that the benefits observed in the studies are about manipulating salt concentrations outside the body to boost immune cell activity. Zielinski agrees, adding that the focus is on exposing immune cells to higher salt concentrations in a controlled environment before injecting them into patients.
Both research teams are now exploring how these findings could be translated into clinical settings to advance immunotherapy.

(09-01-2024, 11:17 AM)727Sky Wrote: I wonder how many times something beneficial has been demonized along with singing the praises of stuff that is really bad for you ? Who you gonna trust ?
https://lists.theepochtimes.com/links/75ogk4fpW/sPLsIDpr1R/aa2an41Ga/qR3rKKOawt

(09-01-2024, 03:54 PM)SomeJackleg Wrote:

(09-01-2024, 11:17 AM)727Sky Wrote: I wonder how many times something beneficial has been demonized along with singing the praises of stuff that is really bad for you ? Who you gonna trust ?
https://lists.theepochtimes.com/links/75ogk4fpW/sPLsIDpr1R/aa2an41Ga/qR3rKKOawt

i kinda doubt that, every time my pop would sit down to eat first thing he'd do is grab the salt and pepper before ever tasting his food. he died from cancer in 2016.

(09-01-2024, 10:09 PM)727Sky Wrote: Animals and ancient people seem to have placed great value on salt... All things in moderation Padawan ?

(09-01-2024, 10:09 PM)727Sky Wrote: What if their salt intake prolonged their lives by "X" amount of time ?

I do not use salt as back in the 90s everyone was saying salt was bad for you so my wife had us cut out salt.. She died of cancer too.

Animals and ancient people seem to have placed great value on salt... All things in moderation Padawan ?

(09-02-2024, 01:05 AM)SomeJackleg Wrote:

(09-01-2024, 10:09 PM)727Sky Wrote: Animals and ancient people seem to have placed great value on salt... All things in moderation Padawan ?

salt or i should say sodium chloride is a critical mineral for for normal body function not just for taste.
i doubt very seriously ancient people before age of reason knew that salt / sodium chloride was combination of two electrolytes
and needed for good hydration, muscle, and nerve function. the greeks and romans may have had a little knowledge about it as well as the chinese. but i think it is more likely what they knew was how it could be used for in food preparation/ preservation and not the need for it in our health.

before those civilizations, i think it was the taste that drove humans along with animals for the search of the mineral by instinct.

Quote:

• Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
  
• Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
  
• Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
  
• Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
  
• Dr. Melik: Incredible.
  

Quote:Sweat typically contains 40-60 mmol/L of sodium, leading to approximately 20-90 mmol of sodium lost in one exercise session with sweat rates of 0.5-1.5 L/h. Reductions in sodium intake of 20-90 mmol/day have been associated with substantial health benefits.

(09-03-2024, 04:08 AM)Ninurta Wrote: As 727Sky said, "all things in moderation, padawan".

Salt is a vital necessity for life. So, you can't cut it out of th diet altogether. But also, as the article on benefits of salt against most cancers observes, EXCESSIVE salt can be pretty dangerous, too.

For those mentioning anecdotal tales of " So-and-so ate a LOT of salt, and died of cancer anyhow", I can add tt my Dear Old Dad was a saltaholic, and died of esophageal cancer in 1998. The article does mention that excessive salt intake has some deleterious side effects, one of which is stomach cancer, which is close enough to the esophagus for government work as far as I'm concerned. That does not negate the potential benefits of NOT excessive salt in cancer treatments. There is a distinct possibility that it has use in some forms of cancer and not others, just as other medical treatments will work against some maladies, but not others.

Alcohol kills bacteria in small amounts... but it can kill YOU too in excessive amounts. Same substance, but varying results depending on intake parameters.

I think folks who cut salt out of their diet entirely are at as great a risk as folks who eat too much of it. Their electrolyte levels plummet, and that has bad implications for things like nerve impulse transmission and T cell health.

Denying ALL science simply because it is some times, frequently, being misused for political ends is also a dangerous thing. it's like throwing the baby out with the bath water. One has to evaluate the claims being made, as well as the methods used to reach those conclusions, before deciding for one's self whether it is valid science or a political machination. It's sad that the state of modern science has come to that, but it has, and we have to deal with it.

There is the very real possibility that "they" are perverting science in some instances in order to get folks to mistrust it in ALL instances, and then when one does that, they are falling right into the trap none the wisser that they have been purposely manipulated.

.