As you get older, you may find yourself fighting an urge to lean a little heavier on the saltshaker. The reason, say British researchers in a new study, is that salt-sensitivity declines steadily after the age of 20. In fact, they report, 25 year olds are 10 times more sensitive to salt than 95-year-olds.
In their study, the researchers tested about 200 subjects for their sensitivity to salt. The volunteer tasters ranged age from 10 to 95 and included men and women, smokers and nonsmokers, and ill and healthy subjects. All were given a series of tap-water samples, some containing tiny amount of salt, to determine the weakest solution they could detect.
Not surprisingly. The older the subjects were, the less sensitive they were to salt. As a group, the subjects in their twenties had the keenest sense of saltiness. Interestingly enough, they were even more salt sensitive than teenagers. Nonsmokers turned out to be more salt-sensitive than smokers. Women were slightly more salt-sensitive than men, but only, the researchers believe, because they do not smoke as much as men. And the healthy subjects were more salt-sensitive than those who were ill.
The underlined word "steadily" means _________.
frequently
habitually
constantly
certainly
Record your answer