A study conducted in mice suggests that salty foods might have a direct impact on sleep, rather than indirectly contributing to sleep problems by increasing the blood pressure.

Mice were found to have similar physical activity levels whether their diets were high in salt or not. However, mice on a high-salt diet appeared to have more neuronal excitability in the suprachiasmatic nucleus at night compared to the ones on a regular diet. The authors stated that neuronal excitability during the night could disrupt the biological clock, making sleep more difficult.

The findings from the study, presented at the virtual Seventeenth International Conference on Endothelin, put forward a reason for people to look at the amount of salt they consume… (Medscape)