Salt is everywhere. It’s used as seasoning and preserves our food. Without enough salt, our muscles, nerves and cells wouldn’t work properly.

At the same time, too much salt can be harmful. Many of us know it’s linked to serious health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney damage, obesity and gastric cancer. Eating more salt than we need can also lead to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.

But here’s something you might not expect: Your kidneys could be the reason you’re craving salt in the first place.

You might think that cravings come from the tongue or brain. But deep in your body, your kidneys are playing a much bigger role than most people realize. They do this through sensory nerves that send messages up to the brain to drive our desire for salt. It’s kind of like your kidneys texting your brain, saying, “Let’s get some salt,” or “We’re good, we don’t need extra salty chips today.”

In a recent study, our research team found that signals sent from the kidney to the brain matter more than we thought. We found that when rats don’t have the nerves that carry sensory information from the kidneys to the brain, they eat a lot less salt.

Our findings give us the important insight that your kidneys can influence your desire to eat salt, not just your ability to get rid of it. When your body needs sodium, your kidneys alert your brain. Once your brain gets the message, it can actually change your behavior, and you might find yourself reaching for salty chips.

Some people, especially those with hypertension, heart failure and chronic kidney disease, may be driven to eat too much salt by these internal signals. If we can find innovative ways to deactivate the nerves in the kidneys and silence these kidney-to-brain messages, we might help people reduce the amount of salt they eat and protect their long-term cardiovascular and kidney health.

So, the next time you find yourself wanting all the salty foods, it might not just be about taste or habit. Your kidneys could be quietly sending signals to your brain, shaping how much you crave salt without you even realizing it.