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My name is Christine Marquette and I'm registered dietician with the Austin Regional Clinic
and I'm going to talk to you about how we use chlorine. Chlorine is actually a chemical
element found in nature. It's most commonly used as a disinfectant for water purification.
It's also used in household bleach, typically used as well in disinfecting swimming pools,
public drinking supplies, those type of things. Chloride ion is the actual form of chlorine
that we use in our bodies, in the human body. Chloride is actually found in salt and in
our bodies it's used for our metabolism. It's also used to help regulate our acid and base
balance. So it's very important in the human body but again, that's as chloride not chlorine,
o.k. In the body, usually blood tests will be taken if there are any suspected problems
with your electrolytes. Say for example you were experiencing a lot of vomiting or diarrhea,
dehydration something like that, your doctor may do a check to make sure that you still
have adequate levels of chloride in your blood. Another reason to check it is if your doctor
suspects some problems with your metabolism. Because again, chloride plays a role in your
metabolic pathways. If there is a problem with your chloride levels it could be an indicator
that you may have kidney disease or some other metabolic problem and your doctor is going
to be checking your levels for that reason. So that's actually some of the ways that we
use both chlorine and chloride.