Biochemistry answers for common weight loss questions: Sodium. (warning, long and nerdy)

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  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    One interesting property of osmolarity is it doesn't matter how big the dissolved solutes are. If you had 100 dissolved glucose molecules (C6H12O6) in a solution it would have the same osmolarity as a solution that had 100 dissolved sodium ions in it (Na+) even though glucose is a much larger molecule than sodium which is just a single atom. Since salt is NaCl and in water NaCl breaks apart into 1 Na+ and 1 Cl+ that means 100 molecules of salt turn into 200 dissolved solutes. So 1 M salt would have an osmolarity of 2 M. Not only that but salt is literally just two atoms and it seperates into single atoms so it doesn't take very many grams of salt to equal a mole where it would take many more grams of glucose to equal a mole and glucose is a small molecule. So salt has a huge bang-for-buck in terms of osmolarity.

    Minor nitpick. I'm pretty sure the above is not correct from a chemistry perspective.

    That may happen in the body, but it takes more than just water.

    I disagree I believe my statement is correct as written. NaCl is ionic (the atoms are connected by an ionic bond not a covalent bond) and it does disassociate into Na+ and Cl- in water. This process is not biological in nature, its physics, it doesn't require a body to happen. If you have some information to suggest otherwise I'd be interested in seeing it but I'm confident that what I said is correct. 1 mole of NaCl put into 1 liter of water would have an osmolarity of 2 due to that dissaociation. Posted a video earlier about osmolarity and in it there is an example of NaCl.

    The reason ionic substances dissolute in water is because using NaCl as an example the Na and Cl atoms are not covalently bonded to one another, they stick to one another because sodium (Na+) is positively charged while chloride (Cl-) is negatively charged and the opposite charged attract eachother. Thing is water molecules have slight charge as well. The oxygen atom in water is a lot more electronegative than the hydrogens and attracts the hydrogens sole electron closer to the oxygen atom. This causes what is known as a dipole moment whereby the oxygen is partially negatively charged and the hydrogens partially positive charged. That means the sodium atom will also attract to the oxygen in water while the chlorides will attract to the hydrogens. As there are a lot more water molecules than Na and Cl molecules they end up surrounding them to make multiple contacts. This interaction ends up pulling the sodium and chloride atoms apart.

    saltwater2.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBfGcTAJF4o

    That is just a result of the interaction of charge from physics, nothing biological about it. It also happens with any ionic bond. Polar solvents (like water) dissolve molecules that are connected through ionic bonds.

    IF that was true, then boiling salt water would leave sodium instead of salt.

    No...it wouldn't. As you boil the water the water molecules vaporize into a gas leaving the solution and going into the air. Sodium and chloride do not vaporize and remain behind. As the water molecules depart the amount of water molecules versus sodium and chloride molecules decreases over time and the attractive forces between the positively charged sodium and the negatively charged chloride ions begin to dominate and they once again attract one another reforming an ionically bonded NaCl crystal. Again this isn't specific to table salt, it would be true of any ionically bonded molecule in any polar solvent.

    Sodium is a reactive metal, chlorine is a gas.

    Google agrees with you, but it still doesn't make sense.

    Sodium alone is a reactive metal, chlorine alone is a gas. Sodium and chloride together are an ionic compound known as table salt.

    And if Water breaks that Ionic bond..... then they're no longer table salt.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
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    Hmm another way to think about it I guess would be negatively charged magnets and positively charged magnets. If the negatively charged magnets are connected to positively charged magnets there isn't a lot of potential energy there to be released, they are just kind of sitting there. But if you have a naked positively charged magnet and naked negatively charged magnets just kind of on their own there is a lot of potential energy there.

    Picture positively charged negatively charged magnets connected to one another. You pour a bucket of them into another bucket of positively charged magnets connected to negatively charged magnets. What happens? Not much, you just get a fuller bucket.

    Do the same thing but pour a bucket of just positive charge into a bucket of just negative charge. I think it would be a lot more...reactive as everything in a rush tries to match up with its opposite charge, shoving and pushing and clacking and generating quite a lot of heat noise and motion.

    If you take mass and put it high up it has more potential energy due to gravity. If you take charges and seperate them they have a lot of potential energy due to the electromagnetic force. You have them nearby an opposite charge its kind of like having that mass on the ground, there isn't that potential energy ready to be released.

    In both cases the positively charged magnet and the negatively charged magnets are the same, its just their seperation that creates the energy. Sodium chloride is the positive and negative magnet that are already connected and have little potential energy. Sodium alone is that naked positive magnet.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
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    As above... I accept the explanation, it's simply not intuitive... Esp since salt water still tastes salty.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
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    As above... I accept the explanation, it's simply not intuitive... Esp since salt water still tastes salty.

    Oh I agree its not intuitive, if it was intuitive it probably wouldn't have taken the invention of the scientific method and hundreds of years to figure it out.

    By the way you've never tasted an intact NaCl molecule so I'm not sure how you would know how that would taste. What gets to your tastebuds are dissolved molecules in water. Even if you put a salt crystal in your mouth it is still the dissolved solutes that are triggering your tastebuds. Your mouth has water in it and everything that interacts with your cells is dissolved within water.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    edited November 2017
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    interesting
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
    edited November 2017
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    As above... I accept the explanation, it's simply not intuitive... Esp since salt water still tastes salty.

    Oh I agree its not intuitive, if it was intuitive it probably wouldn't have taken the invention of the scientific method and hundreds of years to figure it out.

    By the way you've never tasted an intact NaCl molecule so I'm not sure how you would know how that would taste. What gets to your tastebuds are dissolved molecules in water. Even if you put a salt crystal in your mouth it is still the dissolved solutes that are triggering your tastebuds. Your mouth has water in it and everything that interacts with your cells is dissolved within water.

    Just remember... Alcohol is not a solution.

    Beer on the other hand... is a solution.
    A Martini is also a solution.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    As I said earlier in the thread, my husband is a molecular biologist. I like to say he finished the 21st grade. Ha!

    Anyway, here are some topics he talked to me about that I think were really eye-opening. So...ideas for your future blog!

    Why Magic Food Isn't Magic - so...we non-science folk read all this stuff in general news that's touting some new "superfood" and it's important that we understand what food can, and can't do for us and why.

    How do we actually lose weight? - I mean at the molecular level. The actual process of how your fat cells shrink and like where does that stuff GO? I just think that's really interesting too

    Why things That Kill Mice Might be Just Fine for You - my husband is a mouse researcher and whenever someone's like "this causes cancer in mice" I see this vein in his forehead pop a little...he's not an *kitten*, so he's not going to be rude to the person, but "poison is all about the dosage" and I think people don't get that - that for some of these studies the amounts of a substance that are adminsitered are WAY outside of the normal range - he showed me the LD50 of things and I was seriously like 'Wut'.

    Anyway, I hope you pursue this idea of a blog or whatnot.

    What does your husband do out of curiosity? I work in drug discovery for infectious disease myself, specifically tuberculosis. We do the occasional mouse work as well.
  • Djproulx
    Djproulx Posts: 3,084 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Topics I was considering:


    How do we get energy from food? (short answer: metabolic oxidation of hydrocarbons)

    ...

    Just in case you were searching for additional feedback on topics :)

    I'm guessing that many MFPers would be very interested in exploring the topic above, with my specific interest being related to the way we use food as fuel during endurance events. Maybe topics such as: The role of electrolytes, the mechanisms that trigger the body to burn fats or carbohydrates as fuel, why the body can only process and absorb a certain amount of fuel during periods of distress (such as in a race) etcetera.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Thanks for the ideas. Some of those I was thinking of also.

    Topics I was considering:

    What is a calorie? (short answer: measure of energy)
    How do we get energy from food? (short answer: metabolic oxidation of hydrocarbons)
    Where does your weight go when you lose weight? (short answer: you breath it out)


    ...and that is about as far as I got. Obviously the idea would be to elaborate on the short answer and explain it. I'll have to think if there is anything else.


    Oh - these sound interesting ... and that third one ... 'Where does you weight go when you lose weight? (short answer: you breath it out) leads me to think .... is that why aerobic exercise helps you lose weight, besides the extra energy burn, you breath faster/harder?

    And another thought ... if you breath out the weight you lost, does you breathing change when you gain or lose weight?
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Djproulx wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Topics I was considering:


    How do we get energy from food? (short answer: metabolic oxidation of hydrocarbons)

    ...

    Just in case you were searching for additional feedback on topics :)

    I'm guessing that many MFPers would be very interested in exploring the topic above, with my specific interest being related to the way we use food as fuel during endurance events. Maybe topics such as: The role of electrolytes, the mechanisms that trigger the body to burn fats or carbohydrates as fuel, why the body can only process and absorb a certain amount of fuel during periods of distress (such as in a race) etcetera.

    Oh boy that gets pretty complex. I think I'd want to keep it more narrowly focused. I mean there are entire textbooks dedicated to trying to explain that. I don't remember a lot of it so if I even attempted to try to summarize I'd probably have to go re-read those textbooks first.

    I remember the gist of it so I'd give the gist but I doubt I'd drill down into that level of detail. I'd probably just talk about molecularly what a "carb" a "fat" and a "protein" are and how they are metabolized and how much energy they produce and where their atoms end up in terms of waste or your body.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
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    Nikion901 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Thanks for the ideas. Some of those I was thinking of also.

    Topics I was considering:

    What is a calorie? (short answer: measure of energy)
    How do we get energy from food? (short answer: metabolic oxidation of hydrocarbons)
    Where does your weight go when you lose weight? (short answer: you breath it out)


    ...and that is about as far as I got. Obviously the idea would be to elaborate on the short answer and explain it. I'll have to think if there is anything else.


    Oh - these sound interesting ... and that third one ... 'Where does you weight go when you lose weight? (short answer: you breath it out) leads me to think .... is that why aerobic exercise helps you lose weight, besides the extra energy burn, you breath faster/harder?

    And another thought ... if you breath out the weight you lost, does you breathing change when you gain or lose weight?

    Well I should probably save and in depth answer for the thread where I'm discussing that in detail instead of in here.

    To give short answers:

    "is that why aerobic exercise helps you lose weight" It isn't why but the result of exercise is increased metabolic breakdown of fuel which leads to more CO2 production which compels you to breath faster to exhale it and the weight you lose comes from the exchange of O2 you breath in and CO2 you breath out. Contrary to popular belief the compulsion to breath faster as a result of exercise is not because your body is signalling you need more oxygen, its because your body is trying to get rid of the extra CO2. If you put on an oxygen mask that delivered 10 times the oxygen into your body that you normally would get and you exercised you'd still end up having to breath heavily because its the CO2 that is driving you to breath, not the O2.

    "if you breath out the weight you lost, does you breathing change when you gain or lose weight?" No. The weight comes from the CO2 you produce during metabolic breakdown of molecules that you then have to breath out. If you simply breath faster you will just breath out less CO2 per breath. In the end you expel the same amount of CO2 because you have the same amount of CO2 to get rid of. Exercise will increase your metabolic rate which will burn more fuel which will produce more CO2 which will have you lose more weight...but hyperventilating or holding your breath won't do anything but make you dizzy.
  • GettingThere62
    GettingThere62 Posts: 83 Member
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    Fascinating stuff. More please!
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
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    I mean in a lot of ways your body is very much like a gasoline engine. A gasoline engine burns hydrocarbons, captures the energy released for work and expels CO2 and water (yes water comes out of your tail pipe as well). The act of processing the hydrocarbons generates heat which is radiated away. Your body metabolically breaks down (burns) hydrocarbons, captures the energy released for work and expels CO2 and water. The act of processing the hydrocarbons generates heat which is radiated away.

    Practically speaking there is actually very little difference in the process at the highest level. The difference is that a gas engine literally burns hydrocarbons to oxidize them and has a very limited "diet" of hydrocarbons it can "digest" while your body uses chemical reactions to oxidize the hydrocarbons in a more controlled way and can gain energy from a much wider variety of hydrocarbons.