Too much salt in one's diet might make the body chew through its own bones leaving then riddled with holes like Swiss cheese, according to Australian researchers.

Scientists at Melbourne's Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute fed mice a high salt diet - equivalent to 12 grams of salt a day, which is about what ths average Aussie consumes.  After just two months their bones were filled with tiny holes. 

The researchers already knew that high salt diets are associated with high blood pressure.  But they were also able to determine that the mice developed over-active immune systems with too many white cells in the blood.  The white cells were coming from rogue stem cells in the spleen, and the immune cells were chewing through the bone.

Although the research is still in the early stages, a similar study conducted in Germany on human subjects produced data that could back-up the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute study.