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Potassium, Sodium and Chlorine Balances of Pre-School Children Receiving Medium and High Protein Diets¹

Section of Home Economics, Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, East Lansing

1. Five pre-school children received constant diets containing first 3 and then 4 gm. of protein per kilogram of body weight.

2. The amounts of potassium, sodium and chlorine which these children stored on both diets were similar to estimated daily accretions and to values which other investigators have obtained for children of similar age.

3. The 4-gm. protein diet produced little, if any, change in potassium retentions for some of the children, but caused a slight increase in others. This diet resulted in slightly higher sodium retentions and distinctly higher chlorine retentions for all of the children.

4. On the basis of potassium and sodium retentions, the percentage increase in muscle fluid on the higher protein diet in the first experiment was greater than the percentage increase in extramuscle fluid, while in the second experiment, there was a smaller percentage increase in muscle than in extramuscle fluid. At the same time the minerals in the diet increased slightly in the first, and remained the same in the second, experiment. These facts suggest that an increase in protein without an increase in minerals did not cause as much muscle production as an increase in both protein and minerals and that potassium, since it is primarily found in muscle tissue, may be a limiting factor in muscle growth.

5. The increased chlorine retentions on the higher protein diets suggested that specific types of tissue may have been produced at that time.

Manuscript received 16 February 1942.