how come eating salt doesnt make us crazy but drinking salt water does?

Answer 1

By "salt water" I assume you mean sea water rather than just adding some salt to a glass of water and drinking it. Anyway...

The reason is because of the higher concentration of salt in sea water. That and there's various bacteria and micro-organisms in sea water that don't help things.

Sea water is usually around 3.5% salt. If you have 1kg of sea water you've got about 35 grams of salt. As a comparison, the recommended salt intake is around 2400 milligrams/day.

Answer 2

By the time people are desperate enough to drink sea water in spite of cautions, they are already so dehydrated and their electrolyte balance is so destroyed that they might be said to be crazy already. When you speak of eating salt, you are speaking of very small quantities. If you were to ingest a very large amount of salt, and keep it down, you would experience the same symptoms of extreme dehydration.

Answer 3

Love this answer : "It's not all about US woman!! What about the fish that...ummm..HAVE to have the salt water to survive?" Great! So basically God is going to populate the lands and rivers with creatures that can't survive without ample amounts of fresh water... then he is going to make 75% of the water on Earth undrinkable? Where is God's common sense? Why not just make all creatures need fresh water or all need salt water? Can't he do that? That would be the common sense thing to do. I know, I know, someone would likely respond with the "his ways are higher than ours" nonsense. That is the trouble with religion. People pick one and then decide they don't need to think for themselves any more because their religion is a package deal that tells them what to think about pretty much everything. Try actually thinking and using reason and logic, and here is a little hint " Because God said so!" does not count as a rational thought. I would say that 75% of water on Earth is saltwater just because that is how it happened to work out due to various causes such as where mineral deposits lay, side effects of the processes that formed the Earth and its landscape. I don't know exactly. What is important though is the creatures that live in it have adapted to where that is what they need. There are fish that live in the mouths of some rivers where they enter the oceans, and have adapted to be able to live in fresh or salt water because sometimes the level of salt in the mouth are of the river changes. It is evolution in action, creatures adapting to survive changes in their environments. I guess you could look at it like it "Is just what God wanted to do" or you can look at it how it is: Evidence of evolution. That some creatures need salt water and some need fresh water, and others have adapted to be able to have either shows that creatures adapt in order to survive.

Answer 4

drinking salt water does not make you crazy. If it did when doctors tell patients to gargle with salt water they would have give a warning not to drink the salt water as it would make you crazy. Ever heard of a doctor doing that??

Answer 5

people go crazy from drinking salt water because it dehydrates them more quickly. it probably doesn't help that those that are drinking the seawater are already likely very dehydrated. I would also venture to guess that the salt in seawater is more quickly absorbed into the blood stream as it is already in solution.

Answer 6

you don't become crazy from taking in the salt. people who relie on sea water as their water supply gets dehydrated, and this makes them crazy. salt water being so many more hypertonic than drinking water leeches out water from your interstitial fliud in your body. this has an impact on your hypothalamus in the brain, with will eventually malfunction, causing all the crazy symtoms.

Answer 7

Different salt and different amount.