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What Are the Side Effects of Drinking Sea Water?

If you've ever gone swimming in the ocean, then you know that swallowing some seawater is inevitable. The taste alone immediately makes you wish you hadn't, but swallowing seawater while swimming isn't quite as dangerous as drinking seawater purposefully. Some circumstances may demand that you drink seawater, such as for survival. However, prolonged consumption of seawater can have disastrous results.

  1. Dehydration

    • Since seawater is made primarily of saline, or salt, it's natural to conclude that too much of it can lead to dehydration. Our diets consist of regular or high intakes of salt every day just from the foods we eat; never mind the salt we may add to bring out the flavor in our food. But salt is normally diluted through drinking water, and so the salt that we eat in our diet is ultimately harmless, flushed away by the liquids we drink throughout the day.

      However, drinking seawater isn't the same as eating salt and drinking water behind it. Too much salt without a proper flushing method can lead to dehydration. The symptoms of dehydration include, but are not limited to, dry, peeling skin and excessive thirst. Extreme cases of dehydration have been marked by dizziness, headaches, vomiting and fainting.

    Kidney Failure

    • Our kidneys are designed as a filter system for the body. Kidneys need water in order to produce urine, which is one of your body's ways of getting rid of waste. If you start to notice your urine becoming darker in color, this is a clear sign that your kidneys aren't receiving the amount of water they need in order to continue to filter waste out of your system. Drinking seawater for an extended period of time can lead to damaging your kidneys or your kidneys failing completely.

    Death

    • There are a limitless amount of life in the sea. Drinking seawater can lead to various sicknesses, infections and possibly death. You're not just drinking water with a lot of salt in it; you're drinking the waste of everything that lives under the ocean, including dead animals and plants. Your body isn't meant or equipped to ward off bacteria of a foreign nature. There is a possibility that you can die from drinking seawater.

      In addition, remember that the human body is made up of about 75 percent water. Losing 15 percent would prove fatal.

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