[Karsten (OP)]

Can eating a table sppon of table salt all at once kill you?
That is what I was told one day. I asked a doctor one day. He did not know. Not is specialty, I guess. Modern myth?

[RD]

Parents of a three-month-old baby who suffered fatal brain damage from a salt overdose have warned others not to feed their infants adult food.
 
Fergus Walsh reports babies cannot digest more than half a gram of salt a day
Leroy Elders was given liquidised adult food instead of specially-prepared baby meals because it was cheaper and his parents thought the ingredients were the same

An inquest on Monday was told that Leroy's body contained nine grammes of salt, the average daily intake for an adult but enough to kill a baby, whose immature kidneys can only process a tiny fraction of that amount.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/404667.stm

[UK] Men are eating almost double that, with a daily average of 11g of salt while women consume an average of 8.1g a day.

Approximately 75% of salt consumed is from processed foods, 10-15% is added by consumers and 10-15% is naturally present in food, the FSA said.

FSA chairman Sir John Krebs told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have a very simple health message. Too much salt is bad for your heart.

"There are 26m people in this country eating too much salt and they are increasing their risk of heart disease and stroke."

The food agency said high blood pressure is a cause or contributing factor in 170,000 deaths a year in England.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3650578.stm

[Chemistry4me]

So no one wants to try it?

[lancenti]

I don't think you'll die since it's not directly inserted into your bloodstream. However, I do expect that you will puke a few times and feel very dehydrated in a moment's notice. You MAY kill a few hundred cells by causing a drastic change in osmotic pressure, and your kidneys, if they could talk, would probably swear at you and kick you for giving them extra work.

I'd test it on lab rats, but I don't have any. My sister does something close to this, but it's with her soup.

[RD]

In the example I quoted above 1-2gram salt per Kg body weight was lethal.

Here the lowest recorded fatal dose is 1gram per Kg body weight.

Having too much salt in your diet (for years) increases your chance of stroke and heart attack, which can be fatal.

I'd test it on lab rats

According to the same (Oxford University) source the LD50 of common salt is 3g per Kg in rats.

[Bored chemist]

Does anyone know how much salt the sailors who lived on salt poork and ships' biscuits would have eaten?

[RD]

Does anyone know how much salt the sailors who lived on salt poork and ships' biscuits would have eaten?

Life expectancy in the 1800s was rather low by modern standards...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/thursday.handleigh/demography/life-death/life.htm

[kilala_94]

LOL No, I once drank half a cup of table salt and water (I'm 152 lbs and a woman) my step brother dared me to...Long story...

[Chemistry4me]

Who are you talking to kilala_94?

[kajamas]

Actually. Some people (such as myself) have to increase our salt intake (for me, it is 5g above what I already eat) This makes your body hold onto water (fluid retention) and helps my heart (I suffer from heart problems due to dehydration). Whenever my heart would start to speed (like 160bpm) I would get saline and that would immediately lower my heart rate. The only problem is that my body takes what it wants and the rest comes out the other end (ouch!) So that much salt cannot kill you, unless you are already dehydrated.

[chris]

Dehydration is combated with physiological (0.9%) saline (NaCl) because giving pure water (H2O) would destroy blood cells; it is also possible to use water containing a different solute - such as glucose (5% dextrose solution is also isotonic with body fluids) but this is less helpful because the glucose tends to move into cells, pulling water with it; sodium, on the other hand, remains chiefly extracellular and therefore bolsters circulating volume more effectively.

Chris