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The Athlete’s Kitchen:
Salt and
Athletes: Shake it or Leave it?
Copyright: Nancy Clark, MS, RD May 2005
Some athletes sweat so much they end up crusted
with salt; they wonder if they need to eat extra salt to replace what lost
in sweat. Other athletes avoid salt like the plague; they see no need to add
it to their food because the typical American diet already contains way too
much. And then there are marathoners and triathletes who read about their
peers who died of hyponatremia (low blood sodium). They wonder if they
should start eating salty foods as a part of their daily sports diet.
Perhaps you, too, have wondered about the role
of salt, or more correctly, sodium (the part of salt associated with high
blood pressure) in your diet. This article can help you figure out if you
should shake it or leave it.
Salt: What it is and does
Salt is made up of two
two
electrically charged particles, sodium and chloride—also called
electrolytes. In your body, sodium helps keep the right amount of water
inside your cells, outside your cells, and in your blood. During exercise,
if excessive water intake dilutes the sodium outside the cells, too much
water seeps into cells and they swell—including the cells in the brain. The
symptoms progressively appear and the athlete feels weak, groggy,
nauseous, incoherent, and then may experience stumbling, seizures,
coma, and death.
The rest
of this article can be found in the Hot Topics in Player Development section
of the Frozenropes web site.
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