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Sodium...a funny sort of question

glampixxie
glampixxie Posts: 85 Member
edited September 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Do you suppose that crying lowers your sodium at all since tears are so salty? Weird, I know. Just curious what you all think. :3

Replies

  • RCKT82
    RCKT82 Posts: 409 Member
    I guess if you cry enough to lower your sodium you have bigger things to worry about other than your sodium levels....
  • ShellyMacchi
    ShellyMacchi Posts: 975 Member
    not so weird a question...
    why?

    cause here's something i have noticed personally.. all my adult life, whenever i have cried, even just a few lil tears over a sad movie, my eyes almost instantly get puffy....BUT... since i have lowered my sodium intake to 1500mg max, i have noticed my eyes don't get puffy from tears anymore! *L*

    hmmm i guess that's a nsv? *LOL*
  • BeastModeAlways
    BeastModeAlways Posts: 12 Member
    Do you suppose that crying lowers your sodium at all since tears are so salty? Weird, I know. Just curious what you all think. :3

    Your recommended sodium intake a day is about 1.5 teaspoons. To me that is an absurd number for anyone who drinks water and is active. However, the body contains a lot of salt, so much salt in fact that sailors would actually do blood transfusions using SEA WATER in a pinch because the salt level was about the same.

    Salt is water soluble, and any water leaving the body will carry some away. If you are having to take in extra salt one day, the best counter to it is to drink lots of water that day.

    Marathon runners and ultramarathon runners will sometimes suffer from salt depletion, but I doubt anyone has ever done so from crying, except perhaps Tammy Fay Baker.

    High sodium usually indicates you eat a lot of processed foods which are very high in sodium. Nobody eating a mostly natural diet even has to worry.

    If you are worried about your sodium, simple return to foods from nature's oven instead of man, and you will never have to fear.
  • JennLifts
    JennLifts Posts: 1,913 Member
    I guess if you cry enough to lower your sodium you have bigger things to worry about other than your sodium levels....


    So true.
  • natskedat
    natskedat Posts: 570 Member
    Do you suppose that crying lowers your sodium at all since tears are so salty? Weird, I know. Just curious what you all think. :3

    Your recommended sodium intake a day is about 1.5 teaspoons. To me that is an absurd number for anyone who drinks water and is active. However, the body contains a lot of salt, so much salt in fact that sailors would actually do blood transfusions using SEA WATER in a pinch because the salt level was about the same.

    Salt is water soluble, and any water leaving the body will carry some away. If you are having to take in extra salt one day, the best counter to it is to drink lots of water that day.

    Marathon runners and ultramarathon runners will sometimes suffer from salt depletion, but I doubt anyone has ever done so from crying, except perhaps Tammy Fay Baker.

    High sodium usually indicates you eat a lot of processed foods which are very high in sodium. Nobody eating a mostly natural diet even has to worry.

    If you are worried about your sodium, simple return to foods from nature's oven instead of man, and you will never have to fear.

    YES! If you're eating a diet rich in whole foods, sodium need not be a concern!
  • glampixxie
    glampixxie Posts: 85 Member
    I guess if you cry enough to lower your sodium you have bigger things to worry about other than your sodium levels....

    Ha! That was funny.

    To others, I'm not super concerned about my sodium, I was simply curious because of something my friend said. Interesting thought though!
  • vacuumdiagram
    vacuumdiagram Posts: 3
    I wonder the same thing about sweating to be honest-if you do lots of exercise, surely you will lose some that way too! but we are probably talking about milligrams, not enough to worry about.

    Just looked up some info on it-here is a link...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008_February_24#Salinity_of_saline_solutions

    If I read this right, 0.9% of your tears are sodium chloride. Looking elsewhere, there are a wide range of tear sizes, but an average of around 2micro litres. So...for example, if you cried 50 tears, equalling a total of 0.1 millilitres, that would give you 0.009 milligrams of salt. Bear in mind that only ~a third of that is sodium...well!
    There is very little sodium lost in crying, which may be sad news-but don't bother crying over it! :-D
  • glampixxie
    glampixxie Posts: 85 Member
    LOL very informative!
  • vacuumdiagram
    vacuumdiagram Posts: 3
    every day is a school day! :-D
This discussion has been closed.

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