Twenty eight adults, 12 men and 16 women, participated in a 1-yr study designed to assess daily nutrient intake accurately. All subjects lived at home, consumed self-chosen diets, and maintained a detailed daily dietary record throughout the year. During four 7-day balance studies, one in each season of the year, meals, beverages, urine, and feces were analyzed for sodium and potassium content by atomic absorption spectrometry. Total intakes averaged 3.4 g/day for sodium and 2.8 g/day for potassium. The Na:K ratio for all diets analyzed averaged 1.3. Nutrient densities of sodium and potassium were 1.8 and 1.5 g/1000 kcal, respectively. Apparent absorptions of sodium and potassium were 98 and 85%, respectively, and did not change significantly over the wide range of intakes. Average urinary excretions of sodium and potassium were 86 and 77% of total intake, respectively. Mean metabolic balances were positive for sodium, +0.47 g/day, and potassium, +0.28 g/day. The data of this study provide useful information concerning the dietary intakes, excretions, and balances of sodium and potassium for adults based on analytic determination.

We examined the validity of using the selenium level in a single biological specimen as a surrogate measure of usual intake. We used data from 77 free-living adults from South Dakota and Wyoming. Subjects provided multiple 1-day duplicate-plate food composites, repeated specimens of blood and toenails, and 24-hour urine collections. We developed a statistical calibration method that incorporated measurement error correction to analyze the data. The Pearson correlation coefficients between selenium intake and a single selenium status measure, after deattenuation to adjust for the effect of within-person variation in intake, were: 0.78 for whole blood, 0.74 for serum, 0.67 for toenails, and 0.86 for urine. We present formulas to estimate the intake of individuals, based on selenium levels in a single specimen of blood, toenails, or urine. In these data, the concentration of selenium in a single specimen of whole blood, serum, or toenails served reasonably well as a measure for ranking subjects according to long-term selenium intake but provided only a rough estimate of intake for each subject.

A study was undertaken to investigate the pharmacokinetics of an organically bound form of selenium. Six adults received a single oral 200-micrograms dose of 74Se as L-selenomethionine. A kinetic model was developed to simultaneously account for the appearance and disappearance of the tracer in plasma, urine, and feces. The model included absorption distributed along the gastrointestinal tract, uptake by the liver-pancreas subsystem, enterohepatic recirculation, distribution to two large tissue pools, and transport through four components of the plasma pool. Average turnover time of the plasma components varied from 0.01 to 1.1 d. The turnover time in the liver-pancreas subsystem ranged from 1.6 to 3.1 d. Turnover time ranged from 61 to 86 d in the peripheral tissues with the slowest turnover. The whole-body residence time was approximately five-fold greater than the turnover time of the tissue pool with the slowest turnover, reflecting substantial reutilization of labeled material.