Hacker News Reader

From the article: "The study did not definitively rule out other factors, such as salt consumption being a proxy for a generally less healthy lifestyle,". In the list of things that they corrected for neither education or income were included. Education is correlated with income and probably with reduced salt intake. Income is roughly anti-correlated with stress. So, my guess is that this result wouldn't hold up with a few more pertinent corrections applied.

View on HN

Yup. Back when I was smoking cigarettes I used to pour salt on anything - and funnily enough a huge percentage of smokers does the same, no idea why.

In case that wasn’t rhetorical, AFAIK smoking is known to dull one’s sense of taste. I would imagine smokers to be less picky eaters and drinkers for this reason as well.

It surely is, but I believe it has less to do with sense of taste. There's a very weird, intangible correlation between smoking (and afaik, drinking) and favouring salty food. Not as in, a little bit saltier just to taste it, but actually salty. There's a few studies around with inconclusive results but they usually always reach the conclusion that salt/sodium intake is dramatically higher in smokers and/or drinkers, but no further conclusions as to which other factors come into play besides nicotine reducing the ion current mediated by the epithelial sodium channel. Although, admittedly, I didn't look further since because I stopped smoking anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com