Question

In your dream, you are floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean. The sun’s hot, you are very thirsty, and you are surrounded by water. You want to take a long, cool drink of sweater, but something you learned in anatomy and physiology stops you from drinking and saves your life! Why shouldn’t you drink a sweater?

Answer 1

Sea water consists of more amount of salt than our body. If we consume sea water the body cells starts loosing water from it. The reason is explained below:

Sea water contains high concentration of salt. Ocean water is hypertonic solution and our body cells contain hypotonic solution (less salts). We know that osmosis is the process by which water flows from low concentration (hypotonic) to high concentration (hypertonic) through semi-permeable membrane. Here our body cells acts as a semi-permeable membrane. To maintain osmotic balance cells starts loosing water to the surroundings (which contain sea water). Due to this dehydration of cells takes place and cells starts shrinking, which leads to serious health conditions.

In the above picture observe hypertonic condition (ocean water), you can see the cells loosing water to the surroundings to maintain osmotic balance which leads to the shrinkage of cell.

Reference URL link: https://socratic.org/questions/you-are-stranded-on-an-island-in-the-middle-of-pacific-ocean-you-are-extremely-t