Reports on the link between a person's preference for salty foods
and the severity of his/her mother's morning sickness. Findings of
research at the University of Washington; Higher intake of dietary sodium
for subjects' whose mothers suffered moderate to severe vomiting during
pregnancy; Alteration of mother's fluid balance.
By
PT Staff, published on May 01, 1996
From the Blame-It-On-Mom Department: Researchers have discovered a
linkbetween your preference for salty foods and--we're not making this
up--the severity of your mother's morning sickness.
In a study at the University of Washington, students whose mothers
suffered moderate or severe vomiting during pregnancy reported a higher
intake of dietary sodium and a greater penchant for salty snacks than did
students whose mothers enjoyed little or no morning sickness.
That preference for all things briny was laid bare in the lab,
where students were free to munch on 1 foods of varying saltiness. Among
Caucasians, offspring of morning sick mom ate twice as much salty snack
mix as controls, report Ilene Bernstein, Ph.D., and Susan Crystal,
Ph.D.-to-be, in Appetite (Vol. 25, No. 3). Curiously, maternal
morning-sickness had little effect on salt preference among Asians,
probably because cultural differences in diet also influence our taste
for salt.
The findings aren't as bizarre as they might seem, insists Crystal.
When researchers in an earlier study induced dehydration in pregnant
rats--thus throwing off the critters' electrolyte
concentration--rodential offspring showed a marked preference for salty
food. So if vomiting alters mom's fluid balance, it might also trigger
her kids to seek extra sodium
Even so, it's our past experience with high-sodium foods that most
influences our taste. Cut your salt for a couple of months--sort of a
"washout period"--and your brain may eventually adjust. Then it may not
matter much how ill your mother felt.
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