Too much salt doesn't make lupus mice sicker in the kidneys or blood pressure — but it does stir up their immune system
Blood pressure and albuminuria in a female mouse model of systemic lupus erythematosus: Impact of long-term high salt consumption.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists gave lupus-prone female mice a lot of salt for 6 months to see if it made their disease worse. Their immune system made more attack antibodies, but their blood pressure and kidney leaks didn't get worse.
Surprising Findings
High salt increased autoantibodies but had no effect on blood pressure or albuminuria—two outcomes it was explicitly hypothesized to worsen.
Prior studies in other models (like MRL/lpr mice) showed salt worsens lupus symptoms. This study found the opposite for key clinical outcomes, challenging the assumption that salt universally accelerates autoimmune organ damage.
Practical Takeaways
If you have lupus or an autoimmune condition, don’t panic about salt—this study suggests it may not directly worsen kidney or blood pressure outcomes, even if it affects immune markers.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists gave lupus-prone female mice a lot of salt for 6 months to see if it made their disease worse. Their immune system made more attack antibodies, but their blood pressure and kidney leaks didn't get worse.
Surprising Findings
High salt increased autoantibodies but had no effect on blood pressure or albuminuria—two outcomes it was explicitly hypothesized to worsen.
Prior studies in other models (like MRL/lpr mice) showed salt worsens lupus symptoms. This study found the opposite for key clinical outcomes, challenging the assumption that salt universally accelerates autoimmune organ damage.
Practical Takeaways
If you have lupus or an autoimmune condition, don’t panic about salt—this study suggests it may not directly worsen kidney or blood pressure outcomes, even if it affects immune markers.
Publication
Journal
American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology
Year
2020
Authors
E. Dent, H. Broome, J. Sasser, M. Ryan
Related Content
Claims (5)
When mice with lupus eat a lot of salt, their kidneys make less of a signaling molecule called IL-2, which might reduce inflammation — even though their immune system is more active overall.
When mice with a lupus-like disease eat a lot of salt for months, they make more of the harmful antibodies that attack their own body, even though their blood pressure and kidney damage don't get worse.
Even though mice with lupus make more harmful antibodies when eating a lot of salt, their blood pressure and kidney damage don’t get worse than mice eating normal salt.
When mice with lupus eat a lot of salt, their kidneys release more of a chemical called endothelin-1, but they also make less of the receptor that makes blood vessels tighten — which might help protect their blood pressure.
Even though salt is known to trigger inflammation through a protein called SGK1, in these lupus mice, eating a lot of salt didn’t change SGK1 levels in the kidney’s inner part — suggesting this pathway isn’t involved here.