If you drink salty ocean water, what happens is you will experience severe dehydration, kidney failure and eventually death.
When you drink salty ocean water, your body will use more water to expel the excess salt from your body than the amount of water you consumed.
Ocean and sea water contains a salt concentration of around 3.5%, which is much higher than the human body can process safely.
Our human kidneys can only produce urine which is less salty than seawater.
And so to eliminate the high salt content of salty ocean water, the kidneys have to draw significant amounts of water from the bloodstream and cells, which result in a net loss of water from the body and intensify our thirst.
Cellular imbalance, organ strain and organ failure also occur eventually as well as some other symptoms from drinking salty ocean water.
When you drink salty ocean water, your kidneys are placed under extreme stress to filter out the excess salt, which can lead to kidney damage and eventually kidney failure.
Also an increase in blood volume and blood pressure from drinking the salty ocean water can also strain your heart and lead to potential heart failure or even stroke.
And the high sodium level in your bloodstream from the salty ocean water, disrupts the balance of water inside and outside of your cells, which is also known as osmosis.
Water is pulled out of your cells into the bloodstream, which causes the cells in your organs and your tissues to shrink and malfunction.
Also ingesting salty ocean water, especially in large amounts can quickly lead to vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness and fatigue, all of which can also worsen dehydration.
And in extreme cases, symptoms progress to delirium, hallucinations, coma and multi organ failure.
Even in survival situations, drinking salty ocean water is actually more dangerous than drinking no water as it speeds up the dehydration of the body.
The body can often survive for a few days without water, but drinking salty ocean water will speed up the process of death from dehydration.