this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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If you drink something that is about the same ionic concentration as your blood, you can absorb a lot of it safely.
If you drink something much much saltier than your blood it will pull water out of your blood cells.
If you drink something with very few ions it will hydrate your blood cells, but drinking too much can burst your blood cells as they try to absorb to much.
That's why I only drink units of whole blood. On average, the under-hydrated and over-hydrated people that contributed to that unit cancel each other out, so I know I'm always working towards optimal cell hydration. Never to much or too little.
Last point is definitely a myth. Yes you can die if you drink an insane amount of water, but a healthy person with a healthy diet can live purely on distilled water.
As far as I am aware it's also still a topic of debate if a healthy person could drink seawater. Not forever, but quite a while. (Have not looked into that for a while tho)
Tldr: our bodies are insanly good at keeping us alive
I think I heard that cats can survive on seawater(not well, but better than dead). For some reason they just have baller kidneys.
Damn lucky I've been somehow drinking exactly the right amount of stuff so that I haven't died yet
Just don't enter any water drinking contests and you'll be fine!
What about blood drinking contests, since that will match your daily contents?
Found the vampire.
I remember that. Same city my office is in.
Isn't gatorade a combo of salt, sugar, water and potassium? So basically, a banana with some salt on it and lots of water.
But it’s got what the plants crave
Gatorade doesn't, that's Brawndo.
It’s got electrolytes.
Apparently the old Gatorade (before commercialization) was so salty it was gross.
Powerade has about 50% more electrolytes AKA salts than Gatorade does.
But that's also part of the trick. It's not just sodium chloride. The potassium is monopotassium phosphate, a salt. Sea water is 3.5% salt and almost all of it is sodium chloride. Gatorade is only about .25% salt. Sea water has 14x the amount of salt as Gatorade
But its what the plants crave!
Currently, one of the slogans on the bottle is “Hydrates better than water”. Do they know what ‘hydrates’ means?
When they start an IV line, they use 'normal saline' [0.9% NaCl] and not pure water.
because osmotic pressure destroying your cells is bad for you
Fun Fact: 0.9% will cause red cell lysis as well. It's not actually isotonic, and it's probably a hidden cause of unnecessary deaths and definitely results in inferior transfusion product quality at minimum.
RFK Jr. has entered the chat
Salt helps you retain water long enough to absorb it
But it’s what people crave!!