Aussie scientists discover brain pathway responsible for salt addiction

Australian scientists have identified the part of the brain responsible for salt addiction, considered one of the main causes of heart disease.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute are hopeful that the discovery of the pathway could help develop a drug to suppress salt cravings and promote healthy eating.

The team from the Florey Institute are even hopeful that the discovery could lead to treatments for other addictions that use the same pathways in the brain such as heroin, morphine and other opiate-based painkillers.

Craig Smith, a neuroscientist at the Florey Institute, said the brain's opioid system had long been known to be associated with the feeling of reward generated from eating food containing high salt content.

Using a process of elimination, researchers were able to discover the location of the "salt-seeking wiring" in the brain for the first time.

Three groups of mice were administered three different types of opioid-blockers and denied salt for two days until they were allowed to drink salty water on the third day.

The first two groups of mice drank about five percent of their body weight in salty water in an hour, representing a high craving for the salt, but the third group, who were given opioid-blocker naloxonazine, drank just two percent of their body weight.

Smith said the mice revealed eating salt engaged the opioid in the central amygdala region of the brain, the same region where positive and negative emotions are processed.

"It wasn't known until now that our natural opioids working in this emotional hotspot drove salt cravings," Smith told Fairfax Media on Tuesday.

"Switching off salt cravings would promote a healthier diet and food choices.

"Because at the moment you know the salad is healthy but you crave the junk food for the salt.

"It's tasty and it's in a lot of food. But we eat too much of it."

A report by Victorian health authority Better Health in 2014 warned that Victorians are eating triple the recommended daily salt intake. Endit