It is quite funny that we have a much higher risk of dying of thirst at sea than on land! So why doesn’t anyone drink seawater with steam?
Earth is currently the only planet with life. Although it is called Earth, many people think that it should be called a ball of water because 71% of the Earth’s area is covered by oceans. This can be clearly seen in satellite images. But most of this water cannot be used by humans. Sea water is not drinkable directly, is it just because sea water is very salty?
The most abundant resource on this planet is sea water, it can be said to be inexhaustible, but this type of resource is fatal to creatures on land! Sea water is very difficult to drink, no matter how thirsty you are, you should not drink sea water. If you want to drink sea water, you can only drink purified seawater.
According to many researchers, people can fast for an average of 6-8 weeks without any problems (of course there are cases where fasting is longer or less) but only lasts 3-5 days if lacking. water.
The lack of water will have extremely serious effects on the body, from reducing the amount of water excreted, to hangover, vomiting, in more severe cases, will gradually lose mobility, experience hallucinations and finally lead to to death!
So what to do if you are adrift at sea with no food or water? Why don’t we drink sea water to hold our breath and wait for rescue?
In fact, no one does and can’t do that. We all know that, but we don’t understand why!
Drinking seawater puts your body under a much greater amount of stress than it can handle.
Most of the sea water in the world has concentrations ranging from 3.1 to 3.5% (meaning for every 1 liter of sea water, there are up to 35g of salt and mainly sodium chloride NaCl salt ).
Regardless of the fact that it is very salty and you still drink it with your eyes closed, this also puts your body under a much greater pressure than the maximum it can withstand. Specifically, when drinking a small amount of sea water mixed with a large amount of fresh water will not cause much harm.
But if you use sea water to quench thirst, it will definitely backfire! Having too much salt in the body will cause us to lose more water to excrete the same amount of salt.
Moreover, the human kidney can only regulate the amount of salt in the body at 9g/L (equivalent to 0.9%), if adding sea water, it will make the kidneys work twice as much. That’s not to mention with a concentration of 3.5%, the amount of salt in it exceeds the maximum limit of the kidney’s working capacity!
In fact, in seawater , besides NaCl , there are also a number of other salts, which are extremely toxic to living organisms . If you drink too much sea water, gradually, the amount of salt in the body increases, reaching the toxic threshold, causing blood flooding, arrhythmia and can cause death quickly!
However, there are still some animals that can withstand the salinity of sea water such as seagulls. They have a special gland at the back of the eye socket, which will collect all the salt in the water they drink and turn it into a solution to be excreted.
Or like in cats, their kidneys have an extremely efficient ability to hydrate sodium, far superior to humans, so if they must use sea water, they can still live well!