What happens when a human drinks seawater? - A lesson from Discovery Channel

[Win2Win]

If you’ve seen the various survival shows on the Discovery Channel, you already know the answer to this question. From the various how-to-survive shows like Man vs Wild, Survivor Man to the ones that retell the tales of those who survived disasters at sea one thing has been taught to us all: seawater is not [...]




Seawater all around, but none for drinking. Image by egroj.


If you’ve seen the various survival shows on the Discovery Channel, you already know the answer to this question. From the various how-to-survive shows like Man vs Wild, Survivor Man to the ones that retell the tales of those who survived disasters at sea one thing has been taught to us all: seawater is not safe for human consumption.

The taste of seawater is a dead giveaway: too much salt can damage the human body.

Remember that seawater is 3.5% or (35 g/L, or 599 mM) salt or dissolved minerals1. If you drink seawater in a desperate attempt to survive out in the ocean you would just do more harm to your body and increase your chances of dying instead of living long enough until rescue arrives.

This would lead to Hypernatremia (hyper= too much + natr= sodium + emia=in the blood) a condition of having too much salt and too little water in your body2. Simply because your body will work extra hard to get rid of the increased excess salt. This process requires water and since your body is the only source of water with lower salt concentrations, you would actually need more water to survive. It would make your situation much worse than before.

Dehydration would worsen and your chances of making it out alive is greatly decreased. That’s one of the perils of being lost at sea, you’re surrounded by water and yet not a single drop is readily safe for drinking.

Image by egroj

• salinity measurement is a total of all the salts that are dissolved in the water. Although 35 parts per thousand is not very concentrated (the same as 3.5 parts per hundred, o/o, or percent) the water in the oceans tastes very salty.Source
• This water loss can occur from illnesses with vomiting or diarrhea, excessive sweating from exercise or fever, or from drinking fluid that has too high concentrations of salt. Source.

• Jeans protect you from snake bites (2)
• Health Gadget: H1N1 Destroying UV Wand (2)
• Nano particles used to fight ovarian cancer (0)
• Influenza A(H1N1) alarmists should calm down (0)
• Migraines are caused by abdominal obesity? (1)

Content from...

[joebloggs]

pretty story to

Andy Holmes, who won two Olympic gold medals for rowing, has died aged 51, it was announced yesterday. He is believed to have contracted Weil's disease, a bacterial infection that can be caught from rat urine in river water.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oc...owing-olympics

[tomboo]

no more beach holidays for me

[sars_notd_virus]

Oh nooooooooo, i love the beach (only in the Philippines but not here in the Uk)!!!


seawater takes the clogs out of me nose definitely not good for drinking

[joebloggs]

seawater takes the clogs out of me nose definitely not good for drinking

[sars_notd_virus]

awwww clogs/ SHOESSSSSSSSS!!! is best not seawater

[raynaputi]

hahahaha...funny Joe!

well good thing I don't drink sea water when swimming on the beach! if there are goggles for the eyes, should there be protection for the mouth so we can't drink water from the sea or pool??? hahahahahaha

[KeithD]

I used to drink sea water straight out the Mersey in the 70's ..... I say drink.... we used to have to slice it

[Juana]

The article didn't mention hallucinations. Hypernatremia causes body cells, including neurons (brain cells), to shrink due to water deprivation.

[Arthur Little]

... recalls to mind, the famous couplet:

"Water, water everywhere ... nor any drop to drink!"

- extracted from 'The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner' ... written by the English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797-98 - and the longest of his works.

[Juana]

if you become submerged in fresh water and aspirate it into your lungs it enters the blood more rapidly than would sea water.

You mean entering the bloodstream doc? Sure you can have pulmonary aspiration where water (or foreign material) enters the respiratory system but how does it exactly enter the blood vessel wall from the lungs? Isn't it respiratory aspiration the main cause for concern?

[Doc Alan]

You mean entering the bloodstream doc? Sure you can have pulmonary aspiration where water (or foreign material) enters the respiratory system but how does it exactly enter the blood vessel wall from the lungs? Isn't it respiratory aspiration the main cause for concern?

I deleted my original post because the thread was about drinking sea water, not drowning. However, since you ask, when seawater is aspirated into the lungs it actually draws blood out of the bloodstream across the membrane between blood vessels and the lung air sacs (alveoli). If freshwater is aspirated, it enters the bloodstream across the same membrane. The effect is the same, lack of oxygen. (The membrane between the alveolus and the blood vessel / capillary is microscopically thin. The total surface area for gas exchange - oxygen and carbon dioxide - is the size of a tennis court).
What I also said originally is that of the several hundred deaths each year from immersion in the UK, a proportion die from cardiac arrest before there is time to aspirate or swallow water, due to the coldness of the water. At post mortem examination in these circumstances little or no fluid is found in the lungs or stomach.