You may not be satisfied eating just one chip from a packet full of potato chips. A new study finds salty snacks make us more hungry, not more thirsty. Salt stimulates our appetite.
The study was conducted by an international group of researchers simulated to the Red Planet mission and considers general information that salt initiates thirst and hence one will land up drinking more water and urinating more.
An environment was created in which everything consumed was controlled as well as measured.
Details of the study are published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Twenty males were selected for the test and were sealed in two separate groups of equal number in a cosmonaut-like environment. One group stayed in the environment for 105 days and the other group for 205 days. Both the groups had similar diets and only the levels of salt were different.
It was found the group that had salty diet consumed less water compared to the other group.
The researchers said salt triggers a mechanism in our kidneys that holds water and produces urea. This results with eating up energy and hence causes hunger.
Professor Friedrih C. Luft, MD, said it is nature’s technique to conserve water.
Luft is one of the authors of the new study too.
Earlier researchers used to believe salt grabs onto water molecules in our body and thereafter drag out those through urine.
It was assumed this mechanism caused the feeling of thirst and hence one drinks more water after eating salty snacks.