Showing posts with label chloride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chloride. Show all posts

June 21, 2011

Electrolytes in the Human Body

Electrolytes are solutes that contain a charge in aqueous solutions. Most acids, bases and salts are soluble in water are electrolytes.

Electrolytes are negatively or positively charged ion. Although many substances in the body are electrolytes, in nutrition and in sports drinks, the term electrolytes refers to the three principal electrolytes in body fluids: sodium, potassium and chloride.

These are electrolytes are among the most commonly monitored electrolytes in clinical practice.

These electrolytes are important in maintaining fluid balance and allowing nerve impulses to travel throughout out bodies, signaling the activities that are essential for life.

Sodium and potassium carry a positive charge, and chloride carries a negative charge.

The concentration of sodium, potassium and chloride inside a cell differ dramatically from those outside the cell.

An electrolyte is stored either intracellular or extracellular.

Potassium is the principal positively charged intracellular ion, sodium is the most abundant positively charged extracellular and chloride is the principal negatively charged extracellular ion.

Fluid move though the body continuously. The heart pumps the blood, pressure is extend on the vessels from outside the body, and muscles relax and contract to help move the fluid through the vascular system. Fluid moves into and out of the cells and the extracellular spaces by osmotic pressure.

Osmotic pressure is determined by the concentration of the electrolytes and other solutes in water.

The greater the difference in charge between two regions, the greater is potential for ions to move to their oppositely charged regions.
Electrolytes in the Human Body

September 28, 2009

Major Constituent of Milk

Major Constituent of Milk
The major portion of ash is composed of the chlorides and oxides of potassium, calcium and phosphorus.

It is of interest to note that these three elements are in greater concentration in milk than in blood, thus the mammary gland exerts a selective action to concentrate these elements.

Too, a fact frequently overlooked is the greater weight percentage of the potassium over that of calcium.

This kind of information can be used to detect injured udders because in the injured udder the composition of the milk becomes more like that of the blood.

The changes in chloride content and in acidity are easily measured.

Milk from cows suffering from mastitis contains a higher sodium and chloride content than normal milk.

Chloride content in milk in excess of 0.14% suggests the possibility of mastitis milk.

All cases of toward the end of lactation and colostrums secreted at the beginning of lactation contain more sodium and chloride than normal milk.

Small variations in the concentrations of Ca and Mg relative to the concentrations of citrate and phosphate are known to affect the ability of milk to resist coagulation when heated.

The ration between the different components seems to be more important that the actual amounts present.

The term salt balance is used to refer to the ratio of these components.

In general, the most common manifestation of a disturbed salt balance is a deficiency of citrate and phosphate ions (particularly when cows are off pasture), which would suggest that in such circumstances addition of sodium citrate or phosphate would correct the balance through its sequestering effect on calcium ions and render the milk heat stable.

Milk contains more calcium that most foods because of the distribution of calcium in milk.

About two thirds of the total calcium in milk is in colloidal form as calcium caseinate, citrate and phosphate; the remaining third is in true solution.

Only because of these phenomena is it possible for milk to have an osmotic pressure equal to that of the blood.

When milk is heated or pasteurized, the equilibrium between the colloidal and soluble phrases is altered in the direction of the colloidal phase.

In cheese making, this change in the ration between of soluble and colloidal calcium is an important factor in the time taken by rennet to coagulate the milk.
Major Constituent of Milk

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