1. Salt Losses of Men Working in Hot Environments
- Author
-
J. S. Weiner and R. E. van Heyningen
- Subjects
Male ,chemistry.chemical_classification ,Work ,business.industry ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Salt (chemistry) ,Sweating ,Articles ,Sodium Chloride ,medicine.disease ,Acclimatization ,Salt diet ,SWEAT ,Animal science ,chemistry ,Salt loss ,Heat cramps ,medicine ,Humans ,Ill health ,Sodium Chloride, Dietary ,Salt intake ,Sweat ,business - Abstract
The necessity for an adequate salt intake for people working in hot climates has been recognized for a long time (Moss, 1923). Salt deficiency is with some certainty known to cause heat cramps (Talbott, 1935 ; McCance, 1936 ; Ladell, 1949) and is very likely the cause of lesser degrees of ill health and inefficiency (Taylor, Henschel, Mickelsen, and Keys, 1943 ; Ladell, Waterlow, and Hudson, 1944). To understand how such ill-effects arise, it is obviously necessary to establish the changes in salt metabolism associated with sweating at high temperatures. In reviews of this matter Ladell (1945) and Robinson (1949) have pointed to the confusion in the literature regarding the exact effects of dietary chloride and acclimatization on the chloride content of the sweat. The recent experi ments of Conn and Johnston (1944; Conn, Johnston, and Louis, 1946) have thrown much light on this problem. This work indicates that when the salt loss during exposure to heat is greater than the dietary supply, the " negative " balance may only be temporary ; a restriction in both sweat and urine chloride output takes place so that after some days the salt deficit is made good and the total salt output is readjusted to the level of intake. Conn's work is important in showing that balance is possible at levels of salt intake even as low as 6 g. per day for men sweating 5-6 kg. a day. Unfortunately, this, as well as earlier work, may give the impression that this restriction in salt loss is necessarily or invariably a part of the process of acclimatization to heat, whereas in logical extension of Conn's findings one would expect no decrease in sweat chloride on a sufficiently high salt intake. The sweat chloride content on higher salt diets during the acclimatization period seems not as yet to have been investigated in experiments like those of Conn in which the subjects lived continuously in the heat. In the earlier work of Black, McCance, and Young (1944), h wever, in which recumbent individuals were exposed daily for short periods in a radiant heat bath, a decrease in sweat chloride output did not, in fact, occur on a high salt diet whereas on a low level of intake a decrease took place. Th experiments reported in this paper are similar to those of McCance (1936) and Black, McCance, and Young (1944), in that they involve short periods of exposure to heat. They were carried out on working subjects exposed to strictly standardized condi ions of work. When this investigation was nearly completed, papers by Robinson, Kincaid> an Rhamy (1950) appeared in which they reported results with which those of the present experiments are in substantial accord. It seems useful to ecord our results, for in addition to confirmation of an important physiological response to hot climates, they are concerned also with ano her aspect of this problem. In our experiments chlorid analysis was made not only of the body swe t from the general body surface but also on sweat collected in arm bags. The difference in the composition between the sweat from these two collections helps to explain some of the confusion referred to by Robinson (1949) and Ladel (1945). Finally, a separate series of ex periments on unacclimatized persons is presented because of its bearing on the " salt conserving " responses of the body at high temperatures.
- Published
- 1952