41–50 of 88 posts
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You'll notice the same behavior from long distance runners, cyclists, hikers, etc. At some point you start feeling dehydration because you're missing electrolytes. If your water intake isn't salted or packed with minerals in some other way, it just makes you thirstier and thirstier. Especially when it's hot out.
This simple lesson was taught to us day one in boot camp when I was in the army, and reiterated constantly over the years. We were required to take our salt packet out of our MRE's and eat the entire contents. The amount of water consumed (and flushed out through perspiration) throughout the day would have severely dehydrated anyone who didn't consume adequate (high) levels of salt.
I have a hypothesis that all the negative effects associated with increased salt intake are really negative effects of overeating. If we measure the salt intake of people who primarily eat fast food -- which has a constant salt content -- the amount of salt ingested will be proportional to the amount of food ingested. So the person who eats five Big Mac meals a day will ingest, roughly, five times as much salt as a p…
I'd also say that plays a role to some degree in real life, but only some. Net effects of higher salt intake (given oter things remain equal) can exist as well: the article clearly mentions higher salt intake leading to higher glucocorticoid levels which in turn are linked to osteoporosis, muscle loss, type 2 diabetes and other metabolic problems
I think Thor Heyerdahl or someone on one of his crews noted that when they added seawater to the freshwater to make it last longer it also made them less thirsty. IIRC they thought it was an interesting observation since it was against all common understanding, but I don't think they ever came close to a solution to why.
Did he (or they) happen to mention the ratios of salt water to fresh? I don't know a whole lot about this topic, but I do recall reading somewhere that thirsty seafarers who succumbed to the urge to drink seawater ended up dying more quickly. I wonder if they figured out how much was okay to drink before it started negatively impacting health.
I'd guess they started with a little saltwater in the rations and increased as they sailed.
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The negative impact is due to water loss via vomiting or diarrhea, and thus having a negative water balance. It's not like saltwater in itself kills you. In fact, you could drink the water of some less salty seas, e.g. the Baltic Sea.
The real bad impact is from disrupting the way your kidneys work. Basically, seawater has a higher concentration of salt than it is possible for your kidneys to remove via urine (due to the physics of that process). For one thing, your body will try to use its existing water supply to flush the extra salt, which means that you'll be urinating (= dehydrating) more than usual. Once that's all gone, and seawater is the…
I suppose in a starvation situation you'd be in extreme catabolism and just make everything worse.
my n=1: I am on an extremely low sodium diet (around 500mg/day) and I didn't find any difference in thirst or hunger levels compared to when I was on a more typical 4000-5000mg/day one. The only change for me (besides of course a period of adjustment where food didn't taste like much) has been a significantly lower blood pressure (from typically 145/85 to 105/65), everything else has remained pretty much the same.
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This simple lesson was taught to us day one in boot camp when I was in the army, and reiterated constantly over the years. We were required to take our salt packet out of our MRE's and eat the entire contents. The amount of water consumed (and flushed out through perspiration) throughout the day would have severely dehydrated anyone who didn't consume adequate (high) levels of salt.
I drink tons of water and I get lots of cramps, presumably from electrolyte shortage. Is there any way of knowing what the right amount of salt is to be consuming?
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CFTR, being a chloride channel, most likely leads to diabetes as a consequence of its effects on the voltage-regulated insulin release in beta cells from glucose sensing. [1] It strikes me as unlikely to be related to the salt-wasting that occurs from failure to reabsorb chloride in the epithelium. 1 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104438/
I think it is probably a lot more complicated than that. CF does a great many things to the body. It is an inflammatory condition and I have seen multiple articles linking diabetes and inflammation. People with CF tend to be seriously underweight and I have recently seen articles that link inadequate muscle protein to insulin resistance. There is no doubt more than that going on, those are just a couple of things tha…
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I drink tons of water and I get lots of cramps, presumably from electrolyte shortage. Is there any way of knowing what the right amount of salt is to be consuming?
Drink isotonic fluids (one of the best: alcohol-free beer).
There is a common confusion between salt (sodium chloride) and sodium, many falsely believing salt is not used only for taste but it's essential for health.
Sodium is a vital element that is found in almost all plants and animals and there is no need for an extra sodium intake because our food has plenty.
Sodium and potassium balance in the body is essential for cell physiology and our health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%2B/K%2B-ATPase
I don't add salt in my food and avoid products with salt for more than a year, "heavy food" doesn't feel as heavy, my skin is not as dry as before and looks better and injuries seem to heal faster.