Science desk
< July 13	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 15 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 14[edit]

Bio/Chemistry: salts and sugars.[edit]

When we run and sweat in the hot weather, we sweat a lot of salt. Therefore drinks like Gatorade have salt and electrolytes in it. If we drank a sugared-juice, can the body treat some of the sugar as if it were a salt? Or is that not possible.

And for the chemistry-side question, salts tend to be ionic, and sugars covalent. Can there be such a thing as a covalent salt, or an ionic sugar? I wonder if a difference between salts and sugars is the difference between ionic and covalent bonding. And obviously, we can have covalent polyatomic ions, that form ionic bonds, making it have both covalent and ionic bonds, I wonder if any of those are considered salts or sugars? Thanks. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 03:11, 14 July 2022 (UTC).[reply]

From a physiological point of view, what is important are not the salts (minerals, being chemical compounds) as such, but the ions when the salts dissolve, known as electrolytes, such as sodium (Na⁺), potassium (K⁺), calcium (Ca²⁺) and magnesium (Mg²⁺). They each play a vital role, and cannot replace each other. So-called electrolyte imbalance can, in extreme cases, be fatal. Sugars do not provide the body with any of these vital electrolytes. Glucose is also important, but it cannot in any way be a substitute for any electrolyte. --Lambiam 07:46, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the second part of your question, most sugars are not ionic but a small number do contain acidic groups, for example neuraminic acid which is a carboxylic acid. Such compounds can be ionised at physiological pH and can form, for example, sodium salts when reacted with sodium hydroxide. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:45, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify a bit more, salts are a basic synonym for ionic compounds, while sugar is a molecular compound, as noted above, the salts we care about are those that contain ions necessary for life (the list above is pretty good). Sugars are carbohydrates, which are not ionic and don't have the elements noted above. --Jayron 32 17:35, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]