Sodium nutritional importance

Sodium chloride is probably the most important salt of both sodium and chlorine. Sodium chloride, common table salt, is an essential component of most food preparation, imparting flavor to food and providing the sodium nutritional requirement. Also, it is used for preserving food. Therapeutically, NaCl solution is used to combat dehydration as an electrolyte replenisher, and it is an emetic. 

The list of salty tasting substances contains numerous organic and inorganic salts including some toxic substances (e.g., lithium chloride), but also some nutritionally important cations and anions. Most abundant of all of these compounds is sodium chloride which, in addition to its physiological importance, was also part of the medium (sea water) in which many phyla evolved. For marine and terrestrial animals alike, the most common salty compound is sodium chloride with the toxic ones much less common. The distribution of NaCl is more patchy for terrestrial than for marine animals, however (21). Since NaCl is an absolute requirement for complex organisms, it is not surprising that nearly all species tested respond to it. 

Sodium compounds are important to the paper, glass, soap, textile, petroleum, chemical, and metal industries. Soap is generally a sodium salt of certain fatty acids. The importance of common salt to animal nutrition has been recognized since prehistoric times. 

Chlorine. Nearly all chlorine compounds are readily soluble in water. As a result, the major reservoir for this element in Figure 1 is the ocean (5). Chloride, as noted earHer, is naturally present at low levels in rain and snow, especially over and near the oceans. Widespread increases in chloride concentration in mnoff in much of the United States can be attributed to the extensive use of sodium chloride and calcium chloride for deicing of streets and highways. Ref. 19 points out the importance of the increased use of deicing salt as a cause of increased chloride concentrations in streams of the northeastern United States and the role of this factor in the chloride trends in Lake Ontario. Increases in chloride concentration also can occur as a result of disposal of sewage, oil field brines, and various kinds of industrial waste. Thus, chloride concentration trends also can be considered as an index of the alternation of streamwater chemistry by human development in the industrialized sections of the world. Although chlorine is an essential element for animal nutrition, it is of less importance for other life forms. 

Salt has been a precious commodity throughout most of human history. Rome s armies were paid in salt, which Mral is the origin of the word salary. Salt is a seasoning, an essential nutrient, and a very important preservative. Table salt is sodium chloride combined with iodine sources (for nutrition), stabilizers for the iodine, and anticaking compounds to prevent it from absorbing water from the air so it can pour freely. 

It is well recognized that interrelations exist. How much sodium one needs depends upon his potassium intake his calcium needs are determined in part by his phosphate intake his need for a specific amino acid may be determined in part by the amount of the other amino acids that he gets (they can interfere with each other s utilization). Only by further experimentation can we determine how important antagonisms and other interrelations are in human nutrition. If highly important, they will seriously complicate the picture but will not change its basic outlines. 

It is extremely important to select the correct type of nutrition when feeding severely malnourished individuals or patients. The provision of food can be dangerous unless carefully controlled as it can lead to what is known as the refeeding syndrome . This is characterised by a rapid increase in extracellular volume, due to increased sodium intake, and decreased blood levels of phosphate and potassium due to increased levels of insulin which stimulate the entry of these into muscle. (The latter changes are also seen when type 1 diabetic patients in a severe hyper-glycaemic state are treated with insulin.) A recommended refeeding schedule is as follows ... 

Metals are extremely important not only for chemical reactions but also for the health and welfare of plants and animals. Some examples of metals required for good nutrition, even in trace amounts, are iron, copper, cobalt, potassium, sodium, and zinc. Other metals—for example, mercury, lead, cadmium, barium, beryllium, radium, and uranium—are very toxic. Some metals at the atomic and ionic levels are crucial for the oxidation process that metabolizes carbohydrates for all living cells. 

Despite important physiological functions and its presence in milk al about 0.I l%. chloride is a neglected element in large animal nutrition. The practice of adding sodium chloride lo concentrate mixtures and free-choice feeding seems to have precluded the possibility of a practical deficiency problem. When salt was omitted from the diet, researchers found that under the conditions used in their study, sodium was the first limiting element. This was true because sodium is present in most natural ingredients at much lower levels, relative lo the cow s requirements, than is chloride. 

Of the seven macro mineral elements required by dairy cattle, five can be considered fertilizer elements (potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and sulfur), but sodium and chloride are both toxic lo plants at high concentrations and present practical problems in areas with saline soils. High salt intakes have also been shown lo increase udder edema in heifers. Because of the importance of chloride in nutrition and mclabolisni. research is needed to define the chloride requirements of lactating cows and clarify mineral relationships, especially between chloride and potassium plus sodium-... 

The masses of individual ions are important in food chemistry. For example, too much sodium in the diet may be harmful to our health. Since it doesn t matter much what anion is present, the quantity of sodium is given on package labels. The general public, however, is not familiar with moles, so the mass of sodium is stated as part of the nutritional information on packaged foods. 

Nutrition The patient s diet should comply with the basic principles of physiological nutrition. It is recommended to take three main and two minor meals per day. Foodstuffs causing flatulence and containing poorly digestible fats (e. g. lard) should be avoided. It is important to consider the influence of glucocorticoids on appetite as well as their metabolic side effects (e. g. restriction of sodium chloride, loss of potassium). 

Dietary levels of selenium and the individual s selenium nutritional status are the most important factors that influence the route and rate of selenium excretion. Selenium excretion in expired air is only significant when exposures to selenium are high. Rats injected subcutaneously with sodium selenite at doses of 2.2-5.4 mg selenium/kg excreted 41-62% of the administered selenium in exhaled air, whereas rats injected with sodium selenite at doses of 0.005-0.9 mg selenium/kg excreted only 0.2-11% of the administered selenium in expired air (McConnell and Roth 1966 Olson et al. 1963). As the amount of administered sodium selenite increased, the percent of the administered selenium excreted in the urine decreased (from approximately 22-33% of the administered selenium at doses of 0.005-0.9 mg selenium/kg to 3-14% of the administered selenium at doses of 3.1-5.4 mg selenium/kg) (McConnel and Roth 1966). Selenium in the feces was not measured in this study. Burk et al. (1972) found that as the dietary level of sodium selenite was increased, a larger proportion of an injected tracer dose of selenium (as sodium selenite) was excreted. At a dietary level of 0.005 mg selenium/kg, approximately 60% of the injected selenium had been excreted in the first 35 days following administration. At a dietary level of 0.05 mg selenium/kg, over 94% of the injected selenium had been excreted over the same period of time. 

The arguments offered above call for caution and the careful, however scientifically sound, evaluation of the safety of food items for human consumption. Close toxicological and pharmacological surveillance of nutritional products with additives and/or the history of chemical or physical processing is of paramount importance. The importance of this surveillance is demonstrated most convincingly by observations made recently in the field of hyperalimentation. Here the patient, deprived of the ability of oral food intake, is dependent on the intravenous infusion of solutions of essential amino acids. For solution stabilization sodium bisulfite was added. This presumed preservative, however, reacts with tryptophan (20) with the formation of products which affect liver tissue adversely (21). 

Potassium and sodium occur in crystal lattices of minerals in the form of salts they are present in the soil solution and their cations are active in exchange processes of the soil colloidal complex. Potassium is important in plant nutrition. Sodium unfavourably affects the chemical and physical characteristics of soils because it plays a part in the destruction of structural aggregates. 

Zein, which is the major protein in corn, was chosen because it contains no lysine. This precluded the formation of LAL during alkali treatment. Therefore, any changes in digestibility or uptake could be attributed to racemization effects alone. Additionally, we were interested in comparing the effects of sodium hydroxide treatment with the effects of calcium hydroxide treatment because lime is used in the preparation of corn meal for use in tortillas. If the traditional lime treatment of com meal is unnecessarily harsh, it could have important nutritional consequences because a large segment of the Mexican population obtains much of their dietary protein in the form of tortillas (22). 

Cereal proteins are important not only for their nutritional quality but also for their functional role in foods. The analysis of cereal proteins by CE has been covered in several reviews. " " Cereal proteins are complex mixture of proteins that are often difficult to solubilize and separate. Because of this, a wide range of analytical techniques including CZE or sodium SDS-CE have... 

The most important excipients in parenteral nutrition solutions are emulsifying agents. Lecithin and phosphatides are mostly used. The emulsifying capacity of phosphatides correlates with their ionisation rate and thereby the pH of the emulsion. The pH also influences the stability of the hpid droplets [58]. If the pH decreases below 3, the droplet surfaces are no longer negatively charged and the droplets coalesce (see Sect. 18.4.1). If necessary, the pH is adjusted with an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide or hydrochloric acid. 

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