Salt intensifies hunger, not thirst
The researchers challenged the long-repeated relationship that eating salty food increases thirst. In a study conducted during a simulated mission to Mars, an international team of ³ scientist found that the exact opposite was true. Those in the study who ers ate more salty food, retained more water and were not as thirsty, but they needed more energy.
For some reason, no one has ever conducted a long-term study to determine the relationship between the amount of salt in the diet and the drinks consumed. Scientists have long known that increasing salt intake stimulates the production of more urine. The extra fluid was assumed to come from increased thirst after salty foods.
This was disputed by scientists at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) and Vanderbilt University. Their findings were published in the “The Journal of Clinical Investigation”.
What has wsp lnego s l with Mars? Nothing. Except that in a long subr Space gyre saving every drop of water may be crucial. During a study simulating subr That on Mars, scientists created an environment in which in which every aspect of diet, water intake and salt intake could be monitored and measured.
In the study, which The study, headed by Dr. Natalia Rakova, involved two groups of 10 volunteers. The first group was studied for 105 days, the second for 205 days. Both groups had identical diets, except for the period of in experiments lasting several weeks each, in which ric levels of salt in food were altered.
The results confirmed that consuming more salt led to higher salt content in urine – not surprisingly. There was also no surprise in the correlation between the amount of salt and the amount of urine. However, the greater amount of urine was not due to consuming more liquid. In fact, a salty diet caused people to drink less. S l activated a water-saving mechanism in the kidneys.
Earlier theses m They found that the charged sodium and chloride ions in salt „were catching” water molecules and pulled into the urine. However, the new results showed otherwise: urea counteracted the attraction of water by sodium and chloride ions. However, it takes much more energy to synthesize urea, which explains why those on a high-salt diet consumed more. Higher levels of salt in the diet did not increase thirst, but intensified feelings of hunger.
– Urea is not a by-product, as previously assumed. It turns out to be an important osmolyte – a substance that helps transport water. Its function is to keep water in the body when our bodies get rid of salt. Nature seems to have found a way to conserve water, kt ra would otherwise have been transferred to the urine by s l – explained Professor Friedrich C. Luft with Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine.
