Description:
A high salt diet (HSD) has been associated with risk of dementia even when high blood pressure is controlled. These investigators reported last year that high salt intake in animals caused damage to vessels and reductions in blood flow within the brain by reducing the amount of nitric oxide (NO) produced by blood vessel endothelial cells. Pursuing the mechanism further, this team tested whether HSD impairs cognition through NO by increasing phosphorylation of Tau and forming Tau clumps or aggregates, which occur in several forms of clinical dementia. They found that HSD activates a kinase known to phosphorylate Tau and indeed phosphorylated Tau aggregates formed in mice fed excessive salt. In mice that specifically lack Tau either by genetic knockout or Tau depletion using anti-Tau antibody, HSD did not induce dementia, even though it still reduced NO and blood…
