Question

After eating a high salt diet your cells are surrounded by a high tonicity environment, what do you predict happens to the size of the cell?

Answer 1

A high tonicity environment means a hypertonic solution. The hypertonic solution has a higher solute concentration and less water. When a cell is placed in a hypertonic solution, the surrounding has a higher salt concentration than the cell(water concentration is less), water moves out of the cell, in a gradient of high water concentration to low water concentration. The movement of water from its higher concentration to its lower concentration through a semi-permeable membrane is known as osmosis. Water keeps on moving out until an equilibrium is reached between the cell and the surrounding. Animal cells are surrounded only by the cell membrane; thus cell shrinks in size and becomes dehydrated. The cell membrane is selectively permeable and allows the passage of water molecules. These shrunken cells may not function properly as dehydration may result in the loss of metabolic activities of the cell.