Salt Makes You Hungry, Not Thirsty, Study Says (sciencedaily.com)

wisebabo writes: Salty diet makes you hungry, not thirsty. Science Daily reports: "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." So if you don't want to gain weight on your trip to Mars, don't eat salty chips. If you don't want to gain weight at home, maybe you should stay away from them as well. From the report: "The studies were carried out by Natalia Rakova (MD, PhD) of the Charite and MDC and her colleagues. The subjects were two groups of 10 male volunteers sealed into a mock spaceship for two simulated flights to Mars. The first group was examined for 105 days; the second over 205 days. They had identical diets except that over periods lasting several weeks, they were given three different levels of salt in their food. The results confirmed that eating more salt led to a higher salt content in urine -- no surprise there. Nor was there any surprise in a correlation between amounts of salt and overall quantity of urine. But the increase wasn't due to more drinking -- in fact, a salty diet caused the subjects to drink less. Salt was triggering a mechanism to conserve water in the kidneys."

Comments

Re:Which is why bars serve peanuts pretzels and ch

[Ol Olsoc]

Which is why bars serve free peanuts, pretzels and chips - obviously they make their real money from food.

Beer has a lot of calories. It is liquid bread.

Certainly ancient beers were. Many were alcoholic gruel. You could fairly live on it. Probably worked as a medicine as well https://blogs.scientificameric...

Potato chips are a poor example

[kevmeister]

While people think potato and other "salty snacks" are high in salt, compared to many food, the sodium content is not high. Because the salt in all on exposed surfaces, the taste of salt is very strong. An ounce of Lays potato chips has 170 mg. of sodium. (Yes, I know most people eat more like 3 oz. at a sitting, so call it 510 mg.) Half of a personal sized pepperoni pizza (Round Table) has 860 mg. (and most people eat the whole thing for 1920 mg.). A Panera Chicken Frontega panini is a stunning 2050 mg. My favorite Chipotle barbacoa burrito is a whopping 2190 mg. And "whopping" makes me think of a "Whopper" which is only 1160 (with cheese).

So if you are looking for high salt foods, chips are not that bad, though I don't really recommend them for a healthy diet. It's other processed foods that really pack it in.