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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 19 2017, @08:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the give-up-the-pork-rinds dept.

We've all heard it: eating salty foods makes you thirstier. But what sounds like good nutritional advice turns out to be an old-wives' tale. In a study carried out during a simulated mission to Mars, an international group of scientists has found exactly the opposite to be true. "Cosmonauts" who ate more salt retained more water, weren't as thirsty, and needed more energy.

For some reason, no one had ever carried out a long-term study to determine the relationship between the amount of salt in a person's diet and his drinking habits. Scientists have known that increasing a person's salt intake stimulates the production of more urine -- it has simply been assumed that the extra fluid comes from drinking. Not so fast! say researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Vanderbilt University and colleagues around the world.

[...] Before the study, the prevailing hypothesis had been that the charged sodium and chloride ions in salt grabbed onto water molecules and dragged them into the urine. The new results showed something different: salt stayed in the urine, while water moved back into the kidney and body. This was completely puzzling to Prof. Jens Titze, MD of the University of Erlangen and Vanderbilt University Medical Center and his colleagues. "What alternative driving force could make water move back?" Titze asked.

Experiments in mice hinted that urea might be involved. This substance is formed in muscles and the liver as a way of shedding nitrogen. In mice, urea was accumulating in the kidney, where it counteracts the water-drawing force of sodium and chloride. But synthesizing urea takes a lot of energy, which explains why mice on a high-salt diet were eating more. Higher salt didn't increase their thirst, but it did make them hungrier. Also the human "cosmonauts" receiving a salty diet complained about being hungry.

So, to reduce your portions and lose weight, eat less salt?


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 19 2017, @11:57PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday April 19 2017, @11:57PM (#496607)

    > Everything good is bad for you, and everything bad, is good for you.

    It's always a question of reasonable quantities, like for Iocane powder.

    Except chocolate. Do not even suggest touching at my giant intake of chocolate, and nobody gets hurt.

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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:39AM (1 child)

    by edIII (791) on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:39AM (#496707)

    I completely understand, and will offer to you a chocolate non-aggression pact:

    You will not fuck with my chocolate, or engage in any activities that indirectly threaten my chocolate, specifically giving aid or comfort to any enemies of my chocolate. In the times in which chocolate is scarce, we agree to non-lethal measures with a trial by Rochambeau when competing for chocolate. If it is a single piece, and is reasonable to believe that chocolate will no longer be available, such as in the events of zombie apocalypses or alien invasions, all bets are off and we gotta do what we gotta do.

    -- EdIII 2017/4/19

    -- *you sign here*

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:31PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:31PM (#496948)

      You may optionally not get stabbed repeatedly upon the discovery of more (high-quality) chocolate than I would be physically capable of ingesting, for the rest of my days or until it gets deeply rotten.

      In addition to this extraordinary gesture of leniency, you are hereby entitled the exclusive rights to anything manufactured by the Hershey company for the US markets (god have mercy on those heretics).