Thanks for the comment, Ha.
Continuing with my curiosity of salt and the ingredients of it, particularly interested in how much is metabolized and how much is retained, did some more internet chasing and found the following:
During a Russian study of diet for a Martian mission simulation, where salt intake is highly controlled by the pre packaged food system, they found that the sodium component is stored, seemingly much of it in the skin. AND how much of it is dumped in urine.
The most interesting finding is that sodium levels in the body are cycling on a 7 day and monthly schedule. Thus debunking the conventional long held science of sodium levels in the body are directly related to salt and or sodium intake on a daily bases.
Martian metabolism: The rise and fall of salt - Ezine - spectroscopyNOW.com
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Titze and his colleagues organized the food for the mission, which would all be consumed and collected their urine each day. The team studied twelve men: six for the full 105-day phase of the program, and six for the first 205 days of the 520-day phase.
"It was the participants’ stamina to precisely adhere to the daily menu plans and to accurately collect their urine for months that allowed scientific discovery," Titze explains. This allowed them to reveal that 95 percent of the ingested salt was excreted in the urine, but not on a daily basis. Instead, at constant salt intake, sodium excretion fluctuated with a weekly rhythm, resulting in sodium storage. The levels of the hormones aldosterone (a regulator of sodium excretion) and cortisol (no known major role in sodium balance but a well-known stress hormone) also fluctuated weekly."
"Cyclic sodium
Titze and colleagues also found that total body sodium levels fluctuated on monthly and longer cycles, with this longer-term storage process seemingly independent of salt intake and not linked to weight gain that would be associated with water retention. The results have one rather immediate implication for medical research and diagnostics: they suggest that current medical practice, which utilises 24-hour urine samples to determine salt intake, might paint a wholly inaccurate picture of a person's salt balance.
"We understand now that there are 7-day and monthly sodium clocks that are ticking, so a one-day snapshot shouldn't be used to determine salt intake," Titze asserts. The team suspects that the same genes that control our circadian rhythms, the so-called body clock may also underpin the sodium storage and release cycles. "We find these long rhythms of sodium storage in the body particularly intriguing," Titze explains. "The observations open up entirely new avenues for research." "
Edit Add: The other interesting bit, though not expressed in this research, is that most likely all function of the body are controlled by hormones. So my wild a$$ guess is that in case hormones are haywire, everything else will be off kilter. Now onto the magic of endocrinology. But I am too old to start medical school now
