In a remarkable inversion, terrestial animals are islands on dry land of the primordial sea where life emerged and without which it cannot be sustained. Perhaps animals only left that sea when they could carry it with them – as leaky vessels tenaciously defending and replenishing their precious reserve of salty water which constitutes most of our body.

 

Hence, like "Thirst", its homeostatic Siamese twin, "Salt Appetite" is a motivational system in animals and humans, with a clear survival need, seeking an extraordinarily specific target - the sodium ion, and served by

multiple physiological systems in body and brain to seek salt, hoard it, remember its location, and balance body sodium and water*. 

 

Sodium comes in salt (NaCl) for humans.  Everybody everywhere loves salt with their food - we eat it with every meal and snack.

Biologically, it seems we need only a pinch, so why do we find salt so delectable, why do we require so much more of it, why do we do this in the face of admonishment to reduce its intake, and its implications for health?

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We suspect there are many reasons, and we have some ideas and some findings that encourage us to persist in the search for answers.

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Like other motives, that for salt can go awry and lead to excess or deficit, and ill health when hedonic craving conflicts with biological regulation.

How and why all this happens is the subject of our experiments. 

There are many reasons for our research; the thirst for knowledge needs salt - it is an essential nutrient, physiological, historical, commercial, and cultural, of enduring importance.  If we understand our predilection for salt, we may better regulate it's use. Medicine has been unable to reduce our salt intake effectively, and we believe that is because we do not know why people crave salt. We believe that an evidence-based approach to reveal the causes of its attraction may be more successful in regulating the desire for salt.

We believe that the insights gained might be relevant for understanding other desires too.

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*Arguably, these are the only two true nutrients of the "wisdom of the body".