title: Simplifying the lithium-marker technique used to assess the dietary intake of discretionary sodium in population studies.
abstract: 1. Lithium has been used by Sanchez-Castillo et al. (Clin. Sci. 1987; 72, 81-6) for tracking sodium in order to monitor the domestic use of salt. The present study was designed to simplify the original protocol, which is too cumbersome for epidemiological studies. 2. A preliminary study conducted on nine volunteers showed that sharp modifications of lithium intake are detected within 24 h in urinary excretion. The average intake over a 5-day period could be predicted by the mean excretion of the last 3 days. Lithium recovery established from 1 baseline day and 3 plateau days was 95 +/- 6% (mean +/- SD), not significantly different from the recovery obtained by the integrated excretion curve over 12 days. 3. A simplified protocol was therefore developed, reducing to 4 the 12 days of urine collection originally required. 4. This simplified protocol was tested on five households (14 adults and five children). All domestic salt was substituted with lithium-tagged salt. Urine samples were collected on 1 baseline day and on 3 plateau days. The lithium/sodium ratio of all urine collections (both complete and incomplete) could be used to estimate the proportion of discretionary sodium. In our sample it was about 29% of total sodium intake. 5. The simplified protocol can thus be proposed for population studies.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Nutrition, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leclercq
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Avalle
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ranaldi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Toti
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ferro-Luzzi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000652:urine; D002648:Child; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D008094:Lithium / Q000652:urine; D008875:Middle Aged; D012982:Sodium, Dietary / Q000008:administration & dosage*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D012982:Sodium, Dietary; D008094:Lithium