If you eat a lot of processed and restaurant foods these days, my bet is that the single ingredient making many foods "taste" good is sodium. In classic fashion, "dead" foods are generally souped up with high amounts of sodium so, you know, they actually have a taste.

High sodium (salt) intake leads to hypertension and high blood pressure -- no surprise there. But possible gastric ulcers are now being tied to a high-salt diet as well.

This is not the first time I've heard this. If you've ever had an ulcer, you probably are not fond of the experience in any way. One less thing to lead to them would be to not expose yourself to a high amount of salt in your diet. That's a hard battle indeed, though.