Maladie de Ménière

Un article de Redorbit

Patients with conditions such as high blood pressure, congestive heart failure or Meniere's syndrome need to eat even less. Take, for example, the case of acclaimed Fresno, Calif., poet Phil Levine. He was diagnosed with Meniere's, a disease in which changes of inner ear fluid affect balance and hearing.

To alleviate his symptoms, Levine cut the salt in his diet _ a move that reduces fluid retention. That prompted his wife, cookbook author Frances Levine, to experiment with dishes such as pork with orange sauce, maffe (an African dish of meat in peanut butter sauce) and mushroom sauce for pasta.

After a year and a half, Phil Levine's bout with Meniere's ended.

"A great many people get over Meniere's disease," Frances Levine says. "My mother had it and got over it. ... I had hopes that he would, too."

Even though she's cooking with salt again, Frances Levine finds her salt tolerance distinctly lower than it used to be.

"Once you cut down on salt," she says, "you get used to it."

Of course, healthy individuals who aren't forced to cut out salt may have a harder time retraining their taste buds. Here are some tips for flavoring food without sodium.