Ingesting seawater...

[Externet]

Drinking seawater is known to be very unhealthy.

There is 3.4 grams of ClNa in a litre; but on a 200 ml. soup would not be too unusual if has 0.68 grams of salt as seasoning (the same proportion) , and would not be detrimental to health.

Is it because other harmful salts in the seawater or there is something else am missing ?

[jcarlson]

Drinking seawater is known to be very unhealthy.

There is 3.4 grams of ClNa in a litre; but on a 200 ml. soup would not be too unusual if has 0.68 grams of salt as seasoning (the same proportion) , and would not be detrimental to health.

Is it because other harmful salts in the seawater or there is something else am missing ?

 

I think your figures are a bit off. Wikipedia states there's 35g of dissolved salts per litre, mostly NaCl, 10x what you quoted.

 

At that concentration, 1 litre of water contains about 14 times the recommended daily value of sodium as prescribed by the FDA, and you will excrete via urine more water than you intake trying to get rid of the excess salt.

[Mr Skeptic]

I don't think that drinking seawater is unhealthy so much as it will dehydrate you. There would really be no reason to drink seawater unless you were dying of thirst and can't stand it (and want to die of thirst faster). Dehydration and dying of thirst are both unhealthy. Oh, and I guess that sort of sodium and such a rapid change could mess with your blood pressure.

[Externet]

Total goof, sorry. I had the wrong figures. Yes, it is ~34 grams in a litre. That explains that such soup would not be a soup at all, but more like poison...

 

It is ~3.4 %, but the litre is 1000, not 100

Edited August 9, 2010 by Externet