What happens to your cells when you eat salty potato chips?

Answer 1

The cells on your tong shrink because of the higher salt content outside those cells as long as that potato chip salt is there. Aside from that, unless you eat a whole lot of salty potato chips, not much, is the answer to your question. Some esophageal and stomach cells may temporarily shrink. The cells in your tong return to normal fast. The sodium chloride is ionized as soon as it meets saliva and both the Na+ and Cl- are transported to your blood immediately through channels from the tong to the large intestine. In the blood these ions don't change the equation very much; immediately there is a response that brings the ion concentration of blood back to where it was before you ate the potato chips. This may result in making you thirsty if the Na+ concentration gets to high, and the water you drink will dilute it out to what it should be, then the excess sodium is rapidly excreted thru a sodium potassium exchanger at the nephrons in your kidneys so that your urine sodium concentration is elevated for a short time, then that sodium is urinated. However in some "sodium sensitive" individuals, this transporter doesn't work so well and these individuals can develop "hypernatremia" or high sodium in the blood which causes many problems.