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Medication-induced adrenal insufficiency
- Some medications may affect your adrenal glands and cause medication-induced adrenal insufficiency, making you want to eat salty foods. These include: sudden stopping of long-term glucocorticoid use such as hydrocortisone (Cortef), triamcinolone (Nasacort, Kenalog, Triesence, and others), fluticasone (Flonase)
www.healthline.com/health/craving-salt
Dec 19, 2022 · Some medications may affect your adrenal glands and cause medication-induced adrenal insufficiency, making you want to eat salty foods. These include:
Dec 22, 2023 · It can be triggered by a variety of causes, including diarrhea, vomiting, heart failure, taking diuretic medications, certain kidney diseases, and more. What Conditions Could Cause Salt Cravings? Routinely craving salt could also be the sign of a more serious health condition.
- Cristina Mutchler
- Dehydration or Overhydration. Sodium is a vital mineral and electrolyte found in your body’s fluids that helps to control how much water goes in and out of cells (among many other things).
- Intense Exercise. Along the same lines, intense exercise with excessive sweating can cause you to crave salt because you have lost electrolytes through perspiration.
- Chronic Stress. Perhaps surprisingly, being chronically stressed can cause salt cravings. Although researchers aren’t entirely sure what causes this, some speculate that eating salt stimulates your hypothalamus to release dopamine, a “pleasure” neurotransmitter.
- Being Tired. Not getting enough sleep—especially night after night—is known to weaken your resolve to eat healthy. Studies show that people who undersleep are more likely to eat high-salt, high-fat, and high-sugar foods than those who are well-rested.
- Addison’s disease. Adrenal insufficiency (Addison’s disease) is a disorder that happens when the adrenal glands don’t produce enough hormones. Cortisol and aldosterone play an important role in regulating bodily functions and stress responses.
- Dehydration. This might sound counter-intuitive. After all, salty foods make you more thirsty. But sodium is crucial for the body’s hydration. When someone hasn’t consumed enough water, their sodium and electrolyte levels drop and the body will begin craving salt in order to replenish them.
- Bartter syndrome. People with this genetic disorder are chronically low on sodium because the body excretes it instead of reabsorbing it. This can lead to calcium and potassium deficiency.
- Cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that involves the digestive system and lungs. Without treatment, it can be life-threatening. The body cannot maintain sodium balance, causing the overproduction of mucus that can clog the pancreas and lungs.
Aug 8, 2022 · This is because aldosterone helps the kidneys keep salt in the body. If there is a lack of aldosterone, the kidneys can leak sodium and cause cravings. Someone with Addison’s disease may also crave acidic or sour foods. Clinicians may treat the condition by replacing the hormones with medication.
May 9, 2024 · What causes salt cravings? Stress. Lack of sleep. Boredom. Excessive sweating. Premenstrual syndrome. Addison's disease. Bartter syndrome. Cystic fibrosis....
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Sep 15, 2021 · It can develop as a result of an autoimmune disorder, tuberculosis, certain fungal or bacterial infections, problems with the pituitary gland, or if you recently stopped taking long-term steroid...
