Adding salt to foods and risk of incident infection
- 1Peking University
Abstract
BackgroundExcess sodium intake is a major contributor to the global burden of disease, but its role in infection susceptibility remains largely unexplored. Although sodium has been considered antimicrobial, high sodium intake may impair immune responses and host defense. We therefore examined whether habitual addition of salt to foods was associated with the long-term risk of incident infections.
MethodsWe included 360,314 UK Biobank participants without prior hospital-treated infections. Frequency of adding salt to foods was self-reported at baseline. Incident infections were identified using ICD-10 codes from hospital and death records. Associations were assessed using multivariable Cox regression.
ResultsOver a median follow-up of 14.3 years, 84 146 participants developed hospital-treated infections. Compared with those who never or rarely added salt, participants who sometimes, usually, and always added salt had progressively higher risks of incident infections (adjusted hazard ratios 1.04 [95% CI 1.03-1.06], 1.08 [1.06-1.11], and 1.29 [1.26-1.33], respectively; p for trend <0.001). The association remained robust across models and broadly consistent across pathogen types and infection sites. The association appeared stronger among participants with normal weight (P for interaction <0.001).
ConclusionsHabitual addition of salt to foods was associated with a dose-dependent higher risk of hospital-treated infections in this large prospective cohort. These findings extend the potential health relevance of excess sodium intake beyond cardiometabolic disease and suggest that lower habitual salt intake may have implications for infection risk. Further studies are needed to replicate these findings and clarify the underlying immunological mechanisms.
FundingThe study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No.82404360).
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BibTeX
@misc{yuan2026adding,
title = {{Adding salt to foods and risk of incident infection}},
author = {Y. Yuan and Y. Qiao and X. Chen and Y. Wang and W. Zhao and X. Zheng and X. Zhang and G. Niu and Y. Wu},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.26.26361489},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.26.26361489v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Adding salt to foods and risk of incident infection
AU - Y. Yuan
AU - Y. Qiao
AU - X. Chen
AU - Y. Wang
AU - W. Zhao
AU - X. Zheng
AU - X. Zhang
AU - G. Niu
AU - Y. Wu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/26
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.26.26361489
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.26.26361489v1
AB - BackgroundExcess sodium intake is a major contributor to the global burden of disease, but its role in infection susceptibility remains largely unexplored. Although sodium has been considered antimicrobial, high sodium intake may impair immune responses and host defense. We therefore examined whether habitual addition of salt to foods was associated with the long-term risk of incident infections. MethodsWe included 360,314 UK Biobank participants without prior hospital-treated infections. Frequency of adding salt to foods was self-reported at baseline. Incident infections were identified using ICD-10 codes from hospital and death records. Associations were assessed using multivariable Cox regression. ResultsOver a median follow-up of 14.3 years, 84 146 participants developed hospital-treated infections. Compared with those who never or rarely added salt, participants who sometimes, usually, and always added salt had progressively higher risks of incident infections (adjusted hazard ratios 1.04 [95% CI 1.03-1.06], 1.08 [1.06-1.11], and 1.29 [1.26-1.33], respectively; p for trend <0.001). The association remained robust across models and broadly consistent across pathogen types and infection sites. The association appeared stronger among participants with normal weight (P for interaction <0.001). ConclusionsHabitual addition of salt to foods was associated with a dose-dependent higher risk of hospital-treated infections in this large prospective cohort. These findings extend the potential health relevance of excess sodium intake beyond cardiometabolic disease and suggest that lower habitual salt intake may have implications for infection risk. Further studies are needed to replicate these findings and clarify the underlying immunological mechanisms. FundingThe study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No.82404360).
ER -