Sodium macroelement

The elements essential for life can be divided into macroelements (daily requirement > 100 mg) and microelements (daily requirement < 100 mg). The macroelements include the electrolytes sodium (Na), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg), and the nonmetals chlorine (Cl), phosphorus (P), sulfur (S), and iodine (I). 

June by one third (Table 6.8). The uptake of the macro elements by the flora goes ahead of the substance growth by assimilation. With increasing age of the plants, the macroelements are diluted, with the changing proportion of leaves to stem and flowers influencing this process (Graupe et al. 1960). The leguminous plants decrease their contents of the alkaline earth elements (Ca, Mg, Ba, Sr) only slowly (Tables 6.8-6.10), if at all. The phosphorus, sodium,... 

Six nonmetallic major bioelements or macroelements are needed to form the multitude of macromolecules in a living cell (C, O, H, N, P, S), and four additional metals to neutralize the predominantly negative charges of these macromolecules (K, Mg, Ca, Na). While the elements from carbon to calcium are undisputed major bioelements, some authors may remove sodium (Na) from this list and insert iron (Fe) instead. However, iron - like most trace elements - is a transition element, whereas sodium is an element of a major group of the periodic system like the other three metallic major bioelements. 

Table 1 Water, macroelement (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium) and oligoelement (iron, zinc, copper, manganese, and selenium) content in some foods...

Among the 50 known minerals, between 15 and 20 minerals are natural components of foods that are part of at least one vital biological system of a plant or animal. Some of them are denominated macroelements because of their abundance in foods these include calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and chlorine. Others are called oligoel-ements or trace elements due to their minimal concentration among these are iron, iodine, zinc, copper, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, fluoride, and selenium. 

Majority mineral elements Or quantity elements, formerly referred to as macroelements, which occur in food in larger amounts, usually in hundredths to units of weight per cent (hundreds to ten thousands mg/kg) and include alkali metals sodium (Na) and potassium (K), alkaline earth metals magnesium (Mg) and calcium (Ca), halogen chlorine (Cl) and non-metals phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S). 

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