The science of saline – why can we drink pure water, but when we put water into our bodies in other ways, like an IV, must we add minerals to it?

Question

The science of saline – why can we drink pure water, but when we put water into our bodies in other ways, like an IV, must we add minerals to it?

In: 480

Answer 1

When you ingest something, it goes through your digestive system, which processes it before it hits your blood stream. When you insert something directly into your blood, you are bypassing all those preparation systems. So it has to be very close to what your body already expected to see in those areas, because if not you will simply break the highly optimized machinery.