Why you would die by drinking salt water?

Question

anything helps.

Answer 1

You wouldn't die drinking salt water. Think about everyone that has ever swum in the ocean, or gargled. They undoubtedly "drank" some salt water. Drinking it doesn't kill you.
And many fish, some swimming mammals (whales), lots of plants, and other sea creatures drink it exclusively!

The problem comes that you, as a land-dwelling mammal, don't process the salt real well. You can tolerate it--and even take advantage of the minerals in the salts--but too much of a good thing can kill you.

Remember osmosis? Someone taught it to you in your early school days. Every year in school, you were taught more about it.
Osmosis is the transportation of "stuff" from one cell to another. Imagine you had two cells, one had salt in it, and one did not. If there is any sort of permeation in the cell wall (a hole) over time, the salt would be transported from the cell with an abundance of it, to the cell without it.
Your cells have lots of holes in them. That's how nutrients go from one place to another within your body. If you had one cell with a lot of salt in it, that salt would begin to spread itself to neighboring cells, and then to those neighbors, and then to those until your body was pretty evenly salted.
The problem is, salt eventually can become a poison to the cell.
You have salt in your cells now. (Have you ever tasted blood, sweat or tears? They are all salty, and come from within your cells.)
But if you got too much salt in any one cell, that cell would die. It would cease to be able to function. Then, the neighboring cells would start getting that excess salt into them, and they would die too, so on until the entire body was dead.
I suppose (although I only theorize--having never actually tried the experiment) that the same thing would happen if you ate too much chocolate. Eventually, the cells would start bursting, and you would die from eating too much. (Okay, chocolate might be a bad example, as clearly it is good for you, and no one has ever died of eating too much of it!)

It isn't that salt water is poisonous. It is that TOO MUCH of it would cause a toxic reaction. And that point would come only if you didn't have enough fresh water to "flush out" the toxic salts.

Oh, and all those sea creatures that live only on salts survive because their cells have adapted to the salty environment. They handle it differently than you do. The cells in their body know precisely how to remove the nutrients they need, and then expell the excess. Your body doesn't normally do that.

Answer 2

The answer is no. You can drink a glass of salt water and live. You can have salt on your fries and pretzels and food and live. Your body simply needs fresh water and will proceed to dilute the salt back to an acceptable level. If you can only drink salt water and have no access to fresh water, you will eventually die from dehydration. You see the body will start using its reserves of water stored in your cells to dilute the salt. Eventually the cells will die if not re hydrated. If enough cells die, your organs will shut down and you will then be in some serious trouble followed by death. That takes a while to achieve and you will feel horrible during the process. Your body will definitely let you know there is something wrong long before it gives out on you.

Answer 3

The short answer is yes. Your body would dehydrate through a process called osmosis. Basically the water is drawn to the salt and from your body. Your body must maintain a very high level of moisture to keep your from becoming dehydrated and dieing. The salt actually draws the water from your organs through osmosis, eventually causing dehydration and death.

Answer 4

You need more water to help you remove the salt from your body than what you are drinking. Drinking salt water would cause you to slowly die of thirst.

Answer 5

The real reason that too much salt water will kill you is the opposite of the reason that too much regular water will kill you.

Biological cells are surrounded by semi-permeable membranes that allow in and out minerals and salts. On either side of the cell membrane, there is a high concentration and a low concentration of salt and minerals. This "concentration gradient" allows the cell to function.

By upsetting your body's concentration gradient, either with too much salt water, or by dilluting your bodie's salt water with too much pure water, the cells can no longer operate through their concentration gradient.

Answer 6

Why? If you had nothing but salt water (maybe you got stranded on a little island) you would die from dehydration. The salt water would upset your stomache. You may either have diarhea or vomit.

Answer 7

the salt in it will take up any water that u will consume and the bodily fluids that are naturally in our body there for creating an extreme form of dehydration. leading to death.

Answer 8

The salt adds to your dehydration.

Answer 9

we have salts in our bodies. we get thirsty when we have too much salts so the water dilutes the salt. saltwater has more salt than our bodies. so if we are thirsty (too much salt in our bodies) adding more salt from saltwater can only harm us more. hope this helps

Answer 10

The salt would cause you to become dehydrated.