Individual Variation of Na Intake and Urinary Excretion in Korean Women

The purpose of this study is to investigate the daily variation of Na intake as measured by dietary methods(weighing vs food analysis) and to examine the difference between urniary Na excretion and dietary Na intake in 9 healthy free living women aged 25-64 years living in Taegu, Korea. Information on the dietary Na intake for 5 consecutive days was collected using he weighing method. Twenty four-hour urine samples were collected for the same period to measure the urinary Na excretion. In order to figure out the difference of Na intake with respect to dietary assessment methodology, dietary intake was measured by the weighing method for three of a total 5 days. At the same time, the meals that subjects consumed each day were collected to analyze daily intake of each subject by the food analysis method. The mean Na intake of subjects for 5 consecutive days by the weighing method was 3558. 5mg. The mean of urinary Na excretion for the same period was 2847.5mg/ Na intake and Urinary Na excretion of each subject ranged from 4475.3 to 2838.4, from 4066.4rmg to 1936.1mg respectively. The mean of Na intake for 3 days by the analysis method and the weighing method were 3044.6mg and 3441.6mg, respectively. Each subject showed a great difference among day-to-day variation of Na intake by the weighting method, analysis method and urinary Na excretion method. Therefore, a short term study period may not be valid to estimate the true average Na intake.