Re: Sodium Homestasis
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
8 Nov 1995 20:33:06 -0500
j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) writes:
>We could (and can) get enough salt from vegetable sources, however,
I always wondered about how the minimum requirements of
any mineral are determined.
Has any human actually been put on absolute no salt diet?
(I know about hypertensives, but they are allowed potassium
salts,and they probably get sodium from other foods so it's
probably a low sodim diet rather than no-sodium diet.)
Most prepackaged food I see has salt or sugar or both.
>human tears and sweat are not even hypertonic, as I've pointed out
>before); human have salt mechanisms -- including both salt appetite
>and renal systems -- which indicate a non-marine ancestry.
This 'salt appetite', business should indicate, if anything
that we are somehow used to more salt than we get via
vegetables and not non-marine ancestry. On the other hand
salt is given to cattle and sheep too, so maybe it has nothing
to do with anything.
It seems to be a learned response but how would we measure
the amount of salt (sodium) we really need. It would seem
to depend on the amount that's flushed out, and that in
turn could depend on the amount we have in the body. There
doesn't seem to be something like the glucose-insulin
mechanism for regulation-- or is there some chemical that's
somehow connected with salt?
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
|