sodium?

[Carnifex]

Does sodium have an effect on weight gain?...from what ive learnt over the years all it does is increase the amount of fluids you store. So that means it doesnt actually cause "weight gain"...but just makes you heavier on the scale due to the amount of fluid in your body...right?

 

[roopy]

zero calories - adds no energy.
all it does in your system is conduct eletrical impulses so your brain and nerves work - along with other so called 'electrolytes'
works on the same principal that pure water does not conduct electricity, but salty water does.

What happens when you eat a lot of sodium (basically table salt) is that your body needs to retain water to keep the fluid in the body at the right level of saltiness to conduct electrical impulses without it being too salty - so till you pee the sodium out you retain more water.

 

[Carnifex]

ah right. Coz ive been eating those canned chicken thingys from heinz recently (similar to tuna but chicken breast)...and they have 600+mgs...

 

[roopy]

if you have a blood pressure problem you should be very careful with sodium. That's the biggest health risk - it raises blood pressure in people prone to high BP.
Apart from that it is only a small issue.

 

[Shorty]

It's not just blood pressure, it's cholesterol and if you're not careful developing issues later in life.

If you can eat fresh chook then do so, have a look at the number on the can it'll be large as canned stuff is usually high in salt.
It's not a small issue, it can cause much more than high blood pressure...dunno why you'd say that.
Salt is a huge issue.

As long as you don't eat it like for every meal you should be ok though.

 

[roopy]

One of the biggest issues with salt at the moment is people avoiding it too much - not so much because of the salt itself, but because iodized salt is the main way people get iodine, and pregnant women not getting enough iodine causes cretinism, a form of mental geniusation (where we get the word cretin from) - and also lack of iodine can cause thyroid disease.
In short - pregnant women need iodized salt, and everyone needs a bit.
Doctors don't even put people with hypertension (high blood pressure) onto low sodium diets these days to the degree they did 20 years ago - they just tell them not to add salt at the table and avoid things like chips and salted nuts with visable salt.

 

[aqua_duck]

Those chicken things in a can are a big rip off, ALDI do frozen marinated chicken breast fillets that are ready after a minute in the microwave and they taste much better