Drink water with salt

When salt water consumption becomes harmful

As you may have heard before, a shipwrecked person must never drink seawater, no matter how great he is. But is this true and if so, why is it not allowed to drink salt water?

• The salt concentration in sea water is higher than that in the body's cells. Salt always pulls water per se. The following happens: The increased salt content outside the cells after consuming seawater is compensated for by osmosis. However, the cell can no longer absorb salt, so H diffuses₂O out of the cell into the extracellular space. The result is that the cell - and ultimately humans too - dehydrate, i.e. dry up.
• Nobody has been harmed by a glass of salt water - sometimes it can even be used as an emetic for poisoning. Also in H
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  ₂O dissolved Glauber's salt can be used medicinally as a laxative.
• It becomes problematic or even fatal if salt water is consumed over a long period of time, without taking care of compensation through a correspondingly high supply of fresh water - for example with Shipwrecked. The longer the seawater is drunk, the further the dehydration progresses until the person finally dies.

Drinking distilled water

But there is also the downside - perhaps you know the bad reputation of distilled H₂O, which is said to be as deadly as salt water.

• Distilled water is pure H.₂O. It does not contain any minerals. This in turn is problematic if it is drunk in large quantities, since it removes minerals from the body.
• Allegedly, distilled water is supposed to burst the cells because - contrary to the consumption of salt water - water now flows into the cell following the osmotic gradient. But this is loud Prof. Hans Oberleithner not true, since by the time the distilled water reaches the cells it is already sufficiently fortified with minerals.