HUNGER FOR SALT FOUND TO BE POWERFUL INSTINCT (Published 1983) (2024)

THE human hunger for salt, that bane of modern nutritionists, is not just a quirk of habit or upbringing, wide- ranging studies show. Instead it appears to be a deep-seated biological drive as fundamental and almost as powerful as those of thirst, sex and maternal behavior.

The strength of the appetite for salt is important because a substantial body of evidence indicates that though salt is vital to life, too much in the diet is one of the key factors in high blood pressure, a potentially deadly disorder that affects 60 million Americans to some degree. And in several societies, a direct correlation has been found between the level of salt intake and the prevalence of high blood pressure.

If human appetite for salt is indeed an instinct ingrained through 30 million years of evolution, as the evidence suggests, nutritionists may have to rethink their strategies for persuading Americans to go easier on the salt shaker.

''It is no accident that salt is one of the four primary elements of taste,'' said Dr. Derek Denton, an Australian physician and scientist who is probably the world's foremost authority on the biology and behavior of salt use. The other tastes are sweet, which in natural substances usually means a fruit, berry or something else good to eat; sour, which can be sometimes good and sometimes bad, and bitter.

Dr. Denton, director of the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine in Melbourne, said the biological function of taste was to help the individual choose good food and reject poison. He noted that animals, from mollusks to primates, reject most things that humans perceive as having a bitter taste. Indeed, many bitter plant substances are poisonous.

Dr. Denton's studies of salt appetite link that substance in many ways to politics, culture and religion - all because of the body's compelling biological need for salt.