Mechanism driving salt appetite ‘linked to drug addiction’

Scientists have discovered that the biological mechanism that creates an appetite for salt is linked to the way addictive drugs influence the body.

A team of Duke University Medical Center – working in association with Australian researchers – found that genes, nerve cells and connections in the brain that are regulated by cocaine or opiate addiction are the same ones that are linked to salt cravings.

According to the researchers, the fact that drug addiction is closely linked to such an intrinsic instinct indicates why abstinence-based treatments are so hard to enforce.

It was also suggested that this explains why therapies that replace substances such as heroin with methadone or cigarettes with nicotine patches are more successful.

Professor Derek Denton of the University of Melbourne and the Florey Neuroscience Institute said: "The work opens new pathways of experimental approach to addiction."

Earlier this year, a Scripps Research Institute found that genetic differences in the nicotinic receptor subunit alpha-5 in the brain can regulate a person's susceptibility to smoking addiction.