Derek Denton was cited in 1995 at election to the US National Academy of Sciences as the world's leading authority on the regulation of salt and water metabolism and relevant endocrine control mechanisms.
11 Facts About Derek Denton
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Derek Denton recognised a crucial biological fact that no biologically relatively inactive cation had evolved in Metazoan organisms to play a role analogous to that which increase of bicarbonate plays on the anion side of the pattern during vomiting and excess Cl- loss.
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Derek Denton succeeded surgically in sheep which opened a new era in the study of body fluid regulation.
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Derek Denton suggested that the endocannibalism recognized by Alfred Russel Wallace in the vast Na depleted regions of the Amazon Basin reflected conservation by the tribes of very scarce minerals of critical importance.
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Derek Denton was notified later that the Salt Institute had withdrawn a Citizens Petition to the FDA proposing cessation of designation of sodium content of foods in the USA which probably would have influenced many other countries.
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Derek Denton had already persuaded Heinz in Australia to cease adding salt to baby food.
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Derek Denton showed that sodium appetite is innate, specific for sodium salts, and separate from thirst, as shown by brain lesion and behavioural studies.
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Derek Denton hypothesized that early in animal evolution complex reflex mechanisms located in the basal brain subserving responses with a homeostatic outcome, in concert with elements of the reticular activating system subserving arousal, melded functionally with regions embodied in the progressive rostral development of the telencephalon.
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Derek Denton was married to pioneering ballet dancer and teacher Dame Margaret Scott from 1953 until her death in 2019.
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Derek Denton was exploring the nature of consciousness in animals.
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Derek Denton was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2005 for leadership in medical research.