Why can humans safely drink saltwater?
Short Answer: It’s too salty. Long Answer: Your body needs salt to function. Salt, or more specifically sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, phosphate are electrolytes in your body. Electrolytes help transmit electrical signals through your nerves, muscles, and help facilitate many organs in your body. Your body needs a specific concentration of these electrolytes to function properly. Too much or too little is bad for you. Your body automatically regulates the concentration of electrolytes by either adsorbing or expelling water. Now sea water is chockablock full of electrolytes. Too much in fact. When you drink it your body must “water down” the electrolytes by adsorbing all the water it can. This sends a signal to making you thirsty. If you attempt to quench your thirst by drinking more salt water then you’ll get just more and more thirsty as your body tries to cope with the high amount of electrolytes. Eventually, and ironically, this will lead to you dieing of dehydrati
