How much can you drink sea water without harm. What happens if you drink sea water

Water is the basis of life on earth. Without it, living beings cannot live long. But in nature, there are species of creatures that live without water for a long time, but then die. The surface of our planet is covered by 80% water, but only 3% of this water can be used for drinking. Many are concerned about the question of why you can not drink sea water. Many have seen films that show people at sea who are tormented by thirst after a shipwreck. This is not due to cold or heat or hunger, but because of the desire to drink. Swimming in the ocean or sea is healthy and pleasant, but you can’t drink such water.

Why you shouldn't drink sea water

Where did the problem of people in the lack of drinking water and for cooking come from? For such purposes, only 3% of all available water on Earth is suitable. The rest of the water contains a large percentage of minerals. They contain chemicals that consist of all the elements in the periodic table. One liter of sea water contains about 35 grams of various types of salts. Magnesium sulphate and chloride give water a bitter taste, while salt gives it a salty taste.

Drinking sea water contributes to many dangerous phenomena. Let's get acquainted with the main points of such negative factors.

Dehydration

Salt is needed by a person, but its need per day is only 20 grams. Of this amount, some part is spent on the work of body functions, the rest is excreted in the urine. Your kidneys need about 3 liters of water a day to function properly. However, it is found in fruits, liquid food dishes.

Water from the sea contains a lot of salt - the entire need for salt per day can be obtained if you drink half a liter of such water. To withdraw this amount, you need two liters. The balance of salt and water is disturbed, salts accumulate inside organs, in vessels, joints. The required part of the water comes out of the interstitial fluid. As a result, the human body is dehydrated, and poisoning occurs with salt deposits.

Kidney dysfunction

To filter out excess salts, the kidneys work to the limit of their capabilities. They cannot withstand such tension for a long time. This test may result in kidney failure.

Appearance of diarrhea

If you take very little water from the depths of the sea, then there will be no dehydration of the body, and the kidneys will not fail either. But even a small amount of it usually causes severe diarrhea, since sea water is high in magnesium sulfate, which is a strong laxative. The water located near the beaches, near industrial enterprises and ports contains a lot of viral infections, industrial waste and oil products.

Mental disorders

Prolonged action of water from the depths of the sea acts and destroys the nervous system, contributes to the occurrence of hallucinations and mental disorders.

Death

A little sea water causes severe diarrhea, other ailments, exhaustion. With prolonged use, salt poisoning, dehydration and kidney disease, gastrointestinal tract, nervous system, and then death occurs.

What are the benefits of sea water

The water from the sea contains a lot of table salt, which is produced by three-quarters of the total amount of table salt in the world. This water contains more than 90 useful trace elements that promote beauty, youth and health.

Sea bathing has the following benefits:

• soothe;
• increase immunity and tone;
• harden the body;
• facilitate wound healing;
• it is recommended to swim in the sea for diseases of the respiratory system and joints.

Sea water promotes weight loss and reduces the appearance of cellulite. Dentists recommend rinsing your teeth with salt water from the sea. Doctors advise rinsing the mouth with such water, treating the nose during a runny nose, and diseases of the throat and nose. For this, it is necessary to use only purified water from the sea. It can be purchased at a pharmacy or prepared yourself in the proportion of 1 tablespoon of sea salt per liter of warm clean water.

risky experiments

In the 50s of the last century, on a ship, a French doctor began to prove that it is possible to survive in the sea without fresh water. As a result, he sailed from Europe to America, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in an inflatable boat, having no fresh water with him. For 65 days, the doctor drank some sea water and raw fish juices. The peculiarity is that in sea fish the gills desalinate the water, so there is no excess of salt in the fish.

A serious experiment ended successfully, the doctor was able to survive, but spoiled his health. His experiment is an example of what happens when water from the sea is used for a long time. Health organization specialists in 1959 made an analysis of the statistics of survival in shipwrecks, and made additional checks on the effect of sea water on animals and humans. As a result, it became clear that sea water poisons the body, so it should not be consumed by humans. If there is no other water, then it is necessary to try to desalinate the salt water.

Salt water desalination methods

Scientists have developed special devices, which are called desalination plants. They are used to purify water from salts. Such installations are available at many production facilities and marine vessels. The simple design of the desalinator allows you to make it yourself. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Take a wide container with high edges.
2. Put a smaller container (mug) in it.
3. Pour enough sea water into a large saucepan so that its surface does not reach the top edge of a small container.
4. Cover the entire structure with a plastic bag.
5. Put a weight on top of it in the center so that the film bends over the mug.
6. Put a homemade watermaker in the sun, and wait a bit.
7. During heating, the water will evaporate and accumulate on the film in the form of drops of fresh water.
8. Small drops will come together and flow into the mug.

All harmful elements will remain in the basin, and fresh clean water will be in the mug. Fresh water can be collected from night dew or from rainwater.

As a result, we can say that drinking sea water is dangerous to health, but if you remove the excess salt, then you can drink it. Therefore, in countries where there is not enough fresh water, technologies for desalination and filtering of sea water are being developed.

Why you shouldn't drink water after a workout

After an intense load, the human body loses a lot of fluid that comes out with salts and sweat through the skin. As a result, a person wants to drink and tries to do it. But trainers and doctors do not advise drinking water immediately after heavy loads.

medical explanation

Many athletes do not understand why the coach does not allow you to immediately drink water after training, when you are very thirsty. After a heavy load, the incoming water is quickly absorbed. As a result, the load on the heart muscle and blood vessels increases. This complicates the work of the heart muscle and the entire system. Under load, the digestive system does not work, and only human muscles do a lot of work.

In order for the work of the stomach to increase several times, it is enough to drink a glass of water. This, in turn, worsens the state of health at the end of the workout, slows down the recovery of the body. With intense exercise and drinking water, the load on the kidneys increases, and as a result, they cannot cope with their task. The level of sodium in the body decreases, the optimal functioning of all human organs depends on it.

There are known medical cases when marathon participants drank a large amount of water after the finish line. As a result, they were taken to the hospital due to kidney failure. After training, do not drink chilled water. This is due to knowledge from the school anatomy course. The human stomach is under the heart. If cold water penetrates into it, then the vessels of the heart narrow, which leads to the fact that the coronary circulation is disturbed, and the nutrition of the heart decreases. Such processes provoke various heart diseases.

In addition to the problems discussed, drinking water after exercise with reduced immunity can lead to diseases of the respiratory system, such as bronchitis, tonsillitis, or even pneumonia.

Conclusions and results

1. Due to the sudden increase in fluid volume, blood volume rises, which complicates and increases the workload on the heart.
2. During exercise, the muscles are involved, and the internal organs rest. When drinking, these organs begin to work actively, so muscle efficiency decreases, which reduces endurance and performance.
3. If you are very thirsty, you should not drink cold water, despite the fact that a lot of time has passed after physical exertion. The stomach is located next to the heart, so the blood supply to the heart muscle is reduced. Violation of the body leads to serious illness.

When and how much water can you drink

Medical experts and fitness instructors recommend drinking warm water in small portions. It is better not to drink carbonated and other sweet drinks, as they do not bring benefits to the body.

How to drink

If you have a sports training planned, it is recommended to drink half a liter of water 30 minutes before the start of the workout, but not cold, and no more than 1 liter 30 minutes after the end of the workout. Water should be drunk in small sips, gargling, and holding in the mouth. This makes it possible to quench your thirst and meet the norm for replenishing fluids. One serving of water can be absorbed by the body in 15 minutes, as a result, thirst will be quenched.

What else can you drink after exercise

1. The best drink after a workout can be called plain drinking water. But other drinks are also allowed.
2. Fluid loss contributes to the removal of useful elements from the body. Therefore, scientists from America recommend drinking cold cocoa 2 hours after training. A serving of such a healthy drink will replenish the loss of carbohydrates and proteins.
3. Milk contains many vitamins and nutrients: vitamin D, calcium, proteins. Animal protein helps to restore muscles.
4. Fresh juices can be drunk half an hour before a workout and the same time after it. The best drink would be grape, cranberry or orange juice.
5. Sports drinks are created with a special composition. They quickly regenerate stamina. Such drinks can be drunk before and after training, but in agreement with the instructor.
6. According to the results of research by scientists from Spain, beer is considered a healthy drink after a workout. It is recommended to use after training after 2 hours. Beer replenishes the supply of nutrients that are lost during exercise. According to the advice of Spanish scientists, it is better to dilute beer in half with water.

For almost every person, summer holidays are associated with the sea. Everyone loves to swim without leaving the water for hours. Recent studies have shown that sea water is very similar in composition to blood plasma, which is why everyone likes to stay in it for a long time.

Sea water covers 3/4 of the globe. Sea water is the water of the seas and oceans. It contains a huge amount of trace elements, salinity is from 34 to 36 ppm - this means that each liter of sea water contains 35 grams of salts.

Salt water in the seas became, according to scientific research, because of the rivers, which washed out salts and other minerals from the soil and delivered them to the seas and oceans. In the "big water" salts were gradually concentrated, which explains the current state of the seas.

By the way, most lakes that do not have access to rivers contain salt water.

In everyday life, a person constantly deals with fresh water - there are practically no impurities in it.

Another thing is the water of the seas and oceans - it is rather a very strong brine than water. In a liter of sea water, on average, there are 35 grams of various salts:

• 27.2 g salt
• 3.8 g magnesium chloride
• 1.7 g magnesium sulfate
• 1.3 g potassium sulfate
• 0.8 g calcium sulfate

Table salt makes water salty, sulfate and magnesium chloride give it a bitter aftertaste. Collectively, the salts are about 99.5% of all substances, which are dissolved in the waters of the oceans.

Other elements account for only half a percent. Extracted from sea water 3/4 of the total salt in the world.

Academician A. Vinogradov proved that all currently known chemical elements can be found in sea water. Of course, it is not the elements themselves that are dissolved in water, but their chemical compounds.

What is the density of sea water? ^

The density of water in the seas and oceans is measured in kg/m³. This is a variable value - with a decrease in temperature, an increase in pressure and an increase in salinity, its density increases.

The density of the surface water of the oceans can vary within 0.996 kg/m³ to 1.0283 kg/m³. The highest density of water is in the Atlantic Ocean, and the lowest in the Baltic Sea.

On the surface of the water, the density can be lower than at the same point in the sea, only at great depths.

The density of the Dead Sea allows you to lie and even sit on the water - an increase in density with depth creates a pushing effect.

When you are at sea, a good way to impress others is to swim using one of the most beautiful and challenging swimming styles. How to swim with this style correctly - read and watch the training video in our article.

As for the standards for swimming and the table of standards, you can, this is relevant!

Why can't you drink sea water? ^

Almost 70% of the planet's territory is occupied by water and only 3% from it - fresh. The molecular composition of salt water is very different from fresh water, and there are practically no salts in fresh water.

Sea water cannot be drunk not only because it tastes unpleasant. Eating it can lead to various diseases and even death. All the liquid absorbed by a person is excreted by the kidneys - this is a kind of filter in the organ chain. Half of the liquid consumed is excreted in sweat and urine.

Sea water, due to the high content of various salts, will make the kidneys work several times harder. Salt adversely affects this organ and leads to the formation of stones, especially since the concentration of salt in sea water is so high that the kidneys cannot cope with such volumes.

There are 35 grams of salt in a liter of sea water, our body receives from 15 to 30 grams of salt per day with food and at the same time drinks about 3 liters of water. Excess salt is excreted with 1.5 liters of urine, but if you drink only a liter of salt water, a person will receive a daily allowance of salt.

The body simply does not have enough water received to remove excess salts by the kidneys and it will begin to produce water from its own reserves. As a result - dehydration in a few days.

The traveler Alain Bombard proved experimentally that sea ​​water can be drunk without harm to health during 5-7 days. But if it is desalinated, then you can take it constantly.

Sea water cannot be drunk, but nevertheless, there are types of salt water that are recommended for consumption. Read the article to find out which mineral water is the most useful!

Do you want to know what is the boiling point of water in airless space, in a vacuum? Then, this is really very interesting!

How useful is sea water? ^

In salty sea water is 26 trace elements that have a beneficial effect on human health, its beauty and youth. The list of trace elements includes bromine, potassium, magnesium, sodium, iodine, calcium, etc.

After swimming in the sea, experts advise not to immediately wash off salt water from the body - you need to wait until all the beneficial substances are absorbed and begin to act. Sea water is also good for nails, especially for people who have thin and brittle nail plates.

For a more effective salt water treatment, it is recommended do not use polish.

Sea waves and swimming are one of the best ways to fight cellulite and excess weight. Trace elements activate metabolism, water helps to cleanse pores, removes toxins.

Water has a beneficial effect on all body systems: it normalizes thermoregulation, improves blood circulation and the production of red blood cells, normalizes the heart rhythm, increases vitality, hardens the body.

Dentists advise rinsing your mouth with liquid - sea ​​water is the best toothpaste, which supplies minerals to the teeth and whitens the smile. At sea they often treat consequences of injuries and rheumatic ailments.

A good way to improve your well-being and physical condition, both at sea and in the pool, is aqua aerobics. Read the most detailed information in the article, bring your appearance to perfection!

One of the most popular and sought after swimming styles is breaststroke, it is very healthy. Read the most interesting about this style of swimming, take care of your health!

What benefits can sea water bring to our hair? ^

Sea water contributes disinfection of the scalp and strengthens the hair follicle. Water envelops every hair and does not allow the environment to have a detrimental effect.

Also, salt is able to absorb fat and cleanse the skin, so bathing is also useful for people with oily hair. Regular bathing in sea water eliminates the need for daily use of shampoo.

Almost all microelements in the water have an ionic form - this allows them to be easily and quickly absorbed by the hair.

Bathing in salt water will make your hair strong and strong. Today, even traditional medicine recognizes the usefulness of sea water for hair.

Is it possible to use sea water when washing the nose? ^

In our time, rinsing the nose with saline solutions has become one of the best home remedies to combat a runny nose.

With the same success, you can use sea water. The benefits of regularly rinsing your nose with salt water have been repeatedly tested through clinical studies.

As a result, after analyzing international studies, scientists came to the conclusion that salt water helps with:

• rhinitis
• chronic sinusitis
• with inflammation of the nasal mucosa
• in respiratory diseases that are associated with polluted air

Rinsing the nose with salt water clears the mucus from the nose and prevents it from thickening. Also, sea water reduces the activity and content in the nasal cavity of substances that cause inflammation, improves the performance of micro-cilia. Sea water cleanses the nasal mucosa from allergens and various bacteria.

Is there an allergy to sea water? ^

Allergy to sea water is very rare. It can make itself felt by the appearance of a rash or hives on the abdomen, arms, knees, neck.

Gradually, if no action is taken, the rash zones expand. This type of allergy is not accompanied by a runny nose or cough, there is no swelling. Not a single case of anaphylactic shock from an allergy to sea water has been medically recorded.

The cause of an allergy to sea water can be a weakened immune system, diseases of the kidneys, liver, adrenal glands. Often there is an allergy not to the water itself, but to impurities in it or microorganisms.

An allergic reaction can be caused by high salt content - this is different from the Black or Dead Sea. To overcome the crisis enough to use antihistamines.

Sea water is definitely good for health. Have you heard of melt water? This article describes whether it can be used for weight loss and much, much more!

In sea water, and just at sea, it will be useful to do aqua aerobics. This article describes in detail exercises for weight loss in water aerobics, read about it, very useful and important information!

Live and dead water are very beneficial for health. Read about what it is, what kind of activator is needed for their manufacture in this article:
take care of your health!

How can you make sea water at home? ^

It’s great for those who have the sea at their side – such healthy salt water is always nearby. Others have to be content with what they have at home. It is good that sea water can be made at home. Different applications require different recipes.

For gargling - a glass of warm water and a spoonful of sea salt. For greater effect, you can add a couple of drops of iodine.

For a bath with "sea water" of the Black Sea, you will need 500 g of salt, 1 kg of the Mediterranean, and 2 kg of the Dead. The water should be at a pleasant temperature for the body.

You can add a tablespoon of baking soda. If the water is being used for healing, after leaving the bath, let the water dry on the body, rather than towel dry.

For foot baths, add two tablespoons of sea salt to a bowl of warm water.
Sea water is a storehouse of useful substances for humans.

You can not neglect the rest of the sea, because bathing allows you to improve the body and even internal organs.

A small informative video on the topic “Why you can’t drink salt (sea) water:

It is bad in the sea without fresh water - everyone knows this. To the pangs of thirst are added more pangs caused by the very sight of water, which has no end. Full! Is it so disgusting, sea water? A variety of animals live in it, and nothing. Sea worms swarm at the bottom, stars and snails crawl, somewhere under a stone hid, a jellyfish swims above it ... All these animals are true children of the sea. They do not need to specially adapt to sea water, because their ancestors did not live anywhere except the seas.

But other organisms once very long ago got into salt water from fresh water. For example, fish. The blood of fish, like ours, is much fresher than sea water, and the fish have to drink sea water. So is it drinkable? They live in the ocean and invaders from the land - various sea snakes,. Albatrosses and petrels do not see the ground for months. What should they drink if not sea water? Our very close relatives, marine mammals, also live in the ocean. The whale will not look for drink on the shore ...

This is not an idle question. People have been struggling for centuries over how to make sea water suitable for drinking, and even better - for irrigating fields. How much water is wasted! What if marine animals share their secrets with us, suggest a solution to this important problem?

Who is the whale's comrade

If we act according to logic and first of all turn our question to our closest relatives - marine mammals, we will be disappointed. Their secret is simple: they just don't drink.

The life of a whale is much harsher in this sense than that of a camel - at least sometimes it reaches the water and drinks ten buckets at a time. Keith does not know such holidays. Day after day - dry. The whale sips, the whale sips the ocean through its famous mustache, pours a decent clod of food, squeezes it better - and swallows. But he doesn’t drink - you can’t, dry law. Also, say, and: swallows fish, and tries to spit out water.

But you can't live without water. Marine mammals extract it in the same way as desert mammals: they make water themselves.

When fats and carbohydrates are burned, water is formed as one of the reaction products. She replaces the sip that the whale and the camel did not get. Fat saves from the cold, it also saves from thirst. That is why the whales, the inhabitants of the polar waters, and the camels, the inhabitants of the hot deserts, are so rich in fat. The camel stores "water" in its humps, the Central Asian sheep in its fat tail. If there is 120 kg of fat in the hump, then with complete oxidation, 120 liters of water and another million calories of energy will be obtained from it - not so little. Fat is oxidized in the process of metabolism, that is, metabolism, so the water obtained in this way is called "metabolic". A camel survives for a long time without water, not because, as is sometimes thought, it “carries water in its stomach”, but because it stores fat for future use.

Other physiological features of the camel are also remarkable, aimed at conserving water. With us, humans, the temperature does not rise above normal, no matter how hot it is: we water from the surface of the skin and cool ourselves. The camel prefers to walk with a high temperature, but does not spend water on sweating. Only when overheating becomes life-threatening does he begin to sweat.

Animals lose a lot of water in the urine. It would seem that there is no getting away from this, but you need to somehow remove urea from the body - a waste product of protein metabolism. The camel also finds improvement here. In his body, urea starts up for the synthesis of new amino acids. And as a result, it is possible to save a little more water.

Even a camel cannot not drink at all, sometimes he needs to break the dry law, get drunk. But there are animals in the desert that never drink and don’t even eat juicy wet food - they manage with metabolic water alone. These are some rodents. It's hard for them. During the day they sit in burrows so as not to heat up - they have no sweat glands at all. Feces are extremely dry, urine is extremely thick. Even the nose of these animals is extended in order to evaporate less water when exhaling: passing through the long nose, the air has time to cool a little, and the vapor partially settles on the walls of the nasal cavity. Here, water is already counted not in sips and not even in drops. Couples registered! That's who, it turns out, the whale's comrades in misfortune - the inhabitants of the desert. Keith doesn't drink, and neither do they. It turns out that sea water is not suitable for drinking?

Suitable!

And yet the search for physiologists was rewarded. You can drink sea water! An experiment was done: they took a cormorant and poured sea water into its stomach. What will happen? Cormorant sat, shaking his head, he did not look particularly displeased. Why is he shaking his head? They noticed that some liquid was flowing from his nostrils. He jerks his head and drops a drop from his beak.

When the liquid was examined, it turned out that it was a strong salt solution. The cormorant somehow separated the salt from the drunk water and threw it out of the body!

Studies have shown that sea birds and reptiles have a magnificent organ - the salt gland. This is a real desalination plant, very efficient. When such an animal drinks sea water, it is absorbed into the blood, the blood runs to all organs, including the salt gland, and it is desalinated in this gland, sodium chloride, table salt, is expelled from it. Desalination continues until the initial, normal salinity of the blood is established. It's like drinking fresh water.

Salt glands are located on the head. Their ducts usually enter the nasal cavity. Only in tortoises fluid flows out near the eyes, and when the gland works, it seems that the tortoise is crying. Finally, it became clear why sea turtles shed tears when they come ashore to lay their eggs. All fabulous interpretations had to be left to the children. Nothing hurts the turtles, nothing is bitter to them, they do not think of any horrors. They just have a desalination device.

Sensations come and go, but scientific problems remain. Of course, it is very good that we have learned about the existence of the salt gland. But it would be much more important to know how it works.

Let's see what her job is about. Each cell of the gland on one side comes into contact with the blood, the other - with the fluid that fills the duct of the gland. There is a lot of salt in this liquid, less in the blood. It would be natural for the salt to move from the duct into the blood, that is, for its cells to become equal on both sides. And salt goes in the opposite direction - from where there is so little, it goes to where there is a lot!

If you put a herring in water, salt will go out of the herring into the water, every housewife who has ever had to soak herring knows this. If a fresh cucumber is poured with brine, the salt will go from the brine into the cucumber. From there, where there is a lot, to where there is little, - as they say, along the concentration gradient. And in the salt gland, the movement is reversed.

For such pumping, work must be done, energy must be expended. This is what the living cells of the salt gland do; the energy they expend can be calculated. But how this energy of the cell is realized, what is the mechanism for pumping sodium chloride - this is a question.

Backwards

And another question: why do seabirds and turtles have desalination cells, but we humans do not? We have such cells, that's what's funny!

Excellent desalters that can pump salt against a concentration gradient. The whole trouble is that in our country they are turned in the wrong end in the blood! In order to be able to drink sea water, desalination plants must drive salt out of the blood, and they inject salt into the blood in our country.

Of course, you can only call it a disaster as a joke. This is not our misfortune, but salvation, otherwise we would not be able to drink fresh water. And we would hardly agree to drink sea water alone!

With each sip of water drunk and then removed from the blood, the body loses salt, because it, along with water, is carried away into the urine. But human cells can only exist in a salty environment, the loss of salt is deadly. This is where desalination cells get in the way of the escaping salt, which take the salt from the urine and pump it back into the blood. Only a small part of the salt is lost in the urine.

When the work of our distillers is disturbed, a person becomes seriously ill. This happens with the so-called Addison's disease, a severe hormonal disorder. Sodium ions leave the body, and their concentration in the blood falls dangerously. Previously, they knew only one salvation - they drank salt water. Now doctors have good hormonal agents, with the help of which the work of the kidney desalination plants is getting better again.

This means that although our body is provided with reliable distillers, they are not able to help us drink sea water. Human physiology is designed for drinking simple, fresh water. Our distant ancestors could not take into account that in millions of years people will need to sail the seas and oceans and they will face the problem of water.

General - in various

And, nevertheless, interest in the unknown principle on which desalination plants operate in wildlife can hardly run out. How often people have become convinced that the solution of some problem by living organisms can be more ingenious, more economical than in technology! Doesn't the same fate await the problem of sea water desalination? It will not be easy to reveal the mechanism of biological distillers, but let's try to at least outline a search strategy.

From the vast experience accumulated by cell physiology, one very useful idea can be drawn: no matter how unusual, special complex function this or that organ performs, its cells do not have any properties that are fundamentally different from what is in any other cells. In short, in all cases a new quality of the organ is achieved by a combination of general, universal mechanisms.

The work of such a wonderful organ as the salt gland is another confirmation of this general principle of physiology. It is fully provided by the mechanism inherent in every animal cell, namely the mechanism by which the cell exchanges its sodium for extracellular potassium. This is one of the most common and fundamental phenomena of cell physiology.

The vital importance of such an exchange for cells is not difficult to explain. Indeed, as a result of the exchange, the protoplasm in its ionic composition becomes sharply different from the extracellular medium. On one side of the cell membrane (inside the cell) there is little sodium, on the other - a lot. It is enough to give the green light to sodium, as it will burst into the cell like an avalanche. The whole situation inside the cell instantly changes: the cell begins to work in a new mode.

Transferring a cell from one state to another with the help of a sodium flow is the same general mechanism as, say, cell reproduction using an apparatus. In order to obtain an ion flow at the right moment, it is necessary to maintain the difference in concentrations all the time - to store for the future the potential energy of ion gradients. This is why sodium ions are always pumped out of the cells. This is done by a special biochemical system - the "sodium pump".

Whether they run along a nerve fiber, whether muscle cells contract, whether an electric stingray strikes an enemy with a high-voltage blow, or simply gland cells pour out their secret, each time the case begins with a sodium avalanche, the possibility of which is provided in advance by the operation of the pump.

Of course, it took some ingenuity from nature to use this intracellular pump to combine a pump that pumps sodium from one extracellular environment to another - after all, this is how the salt gland of a cormorant or the desalination device of our kidneys works. But it's still a relatively easy task. Physiologists easily solve it on paper. It is much more difficult to understand the mechanism of operation of the cellular pump itself.

But if the course of our reasoning was correct, then this means that the entire huge army of scientists involved in the physiology of nerve and muscle cells, willy-nilly, is also working on the problem of biological desalinators.

Can you drink sea water? This question has been answered in the negative for a long time. The fact is that the human body is not adapted to removing excess salts that would come with sea water. Marine fish and birds have special glands through which brine drops are released. By the way, earlier, when they did not know this, they could not keep, for example, albatrosses in the zoo. It turns out that the water for them must be salted, because special glands work all the time, and if the albatross drinks fresh water, he will die from a lack of salts.

In the instructions to the crews of sea vessels, there has long been a point that in the absence of fresh water, you cannot drink sea water. However, recently the opinion about sea water has changed somewhat. Facts have become known about people who drank sea water of low concentration and remained alive. So, for example, during the Great Patriotic War, one soldier was carried away in a boat far from the coast in the Sea of ​​Azov. He had no food, no walkie-talkie, no fresh water. For more than a month he drifted on the sea, drank salt water, ate raw fish and remained alive.

In seas with low salinity, it can be drunk if necessary. On ships, sometimes they even began to add it to food to prevent diseases in the tropics. Doctors recommend taking sea water orally for some gastric diseases (of course, not for everyone and in certain doses).

An interesting, although, at first glance, strange, circumstance is the almost exact coincidence of the percentage composition of salts in sea water with the composition of human blood. However, if we recall that the primary forms of life originated hundreds of millions of years ago in the ocean, and later highly organized creatures descended from them, then such a similarity will not seem surprising.

Sea water is a concept that includes all the water of the seas and oceans, which is about 70% of the globe.

Source: depositphotos.com

Despite the absence of a visual difference between sea and fresh water, their chemical composition varies significantly. The salt content in fresh water is on average 0.146‰ (ppm), and sea water is 35‰, which gives it a specific salty-bitter taste.

If we present the data in absolute terms, we can say that 35 g of salts are dissolved in 1 liter of water, 27 g of which is sodium chloride (common salt). In addition to chlorides, sea water contains sulfates, carbonates, salts of nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, etc.

The high concentration of salts in sea water makes it unsuitable for consumption without prior desalination. The World Health Organization, having conducted a comprehensive study in 1959, concluded that sea water has a destructive effect on the body and it is strictly forbidden to use it for drinking. The conclusion about the unsuitability of sea water for drinking was made on the basis of laboratory studies and analysis of shipwreck statistics, from which it followed that more than 38% of the victims who consumed sea water died, of those who did not drink it - just over 3%. For adequate removal of salts contained in 100 ml of sea water, they must be dissolved in 160 ml of fresh water.

For the removal of water from the body, in the first place, the kidneys are responsible, for which such a salt load is abnormal, which leads to disruption of their functioning. To bring the composition of urine to a suitable for removal, the urinary system attracts the fluid of the body itself, including intercellular fluid, which leads to its dehydration. Magnesium sulfate, contained in sea water, has a laxative effect, and salts irritate the gastric mucosa, causing vomiting, which further increases fluid loss.

Despite the fact that after drinking sea water, symptoms very similar to those of intestinal dyspepsia develop, they are not a manifestation of poisoning in the generally accepted sense, since there are no toxic substances in sea water.

The main cause of poisoning is pathogenic microorganisms (usually rota-, adeno-, reo-, corona- and enteroviruses), which can be found in sea water. Ingestion of water in this case leads to the development of gastroenteritis of varying severity.

Specific natural conditions (high humidity and temperature of air and water) and a large concentration of people, especially the most vulnerable group - young children, are extremely favorable for the reproduction of viruses and the preservation of their pathogenic properties. So, for example, a recovered person is able to excrete rotavirus with faeces for 30 or more days after clinical recovery.

Most often, characteristic symptoms after being in sea water appear in young children (up to 3 years old) for the following reasons:

• swallowing sea water while swimming;
• involuntary ingress of water into the body, including through the nose, while playing in the water.

For a child, a few sips of sea water are enough for the condition to worsen.

Acute gastrointestinal upset is also possible in adults, for example, if the mouthpiece of the breathing tube is misused or malfunctioning when swimming with a mask, repeatedly getting water through the nose when diving, swimming in a storm.

Symptoms of poisoning

When using sea water, a number of symptoms of varying severity (depending on the amount of water swallowed and the age of the victim) occur, similar to the manifestations of poisoning:

• general weakness;
• lack of appetite;
• nausea, vomiting;
• perspiration in the nasopharynx, rhinorrhea, sneezing.

In young children, the consequences of swallowing sea water are usually more pronounced:

• drowsiness, apathy, severe weakness;
• pallor of the skin;
• loose stools, nausea, vomiting;
• decreased urination, concentrated color and pungent odor of urine;
• single rise in body temperature.

The listed symptoms usually stop on their own within 1-2 days, are not accompanied by a persistent increase in temperature, and do not require special therapeutic measures.

True seawater poisoning is possible when it contains pathogens. With a viral infection, symptoms will range from mild to extremely severe, depending on the initial state of the immune system and the type of virus. The disease usually manifests itself 1-3 days after direct infection (although sometimes the incubation period reaches 10-14 days) with the following symptoms:

• weakness;
• loss of appetite;
• nausea, vomiting, mushy stools;
• flatulence, rumbling and discomfort in the abdomen.

With a mild course, there are no signs of dehydration, dyspeptic symptoms are slightly expressed, body temperature is within the normal range, and the condition spontaneously improves on 3-4 days.

Moderate and severe infections have similar symptoms, differing only in severity:

• weakness, drowsiness;
• pallor of the skin;
• headache, dizziness;
• muscle and joint pain;
• chills, fever;
• lack of appetite;
• intense nausea, repeated vomiting;
• profuse liquid fetid stools more often 10-15 times a day;
• spastic pains in the epigastrium and in the umbilical region.

Symptoms of the disease of moderate and severe degree persist up to 6-7 days. Due to the high likelihood of dehydration, special therapy is required.