Cities have been named after it.
Economies have been built on it.
Wars have been fought over it.
Your life depends on it.
Salt may be the most important,
and the most divisive,
mineral in history.
There are more than 14,000 uses for salt,
but to most of us,
it only means one thing:
Back in the day,
your salary might've been paid in salt,
It could've preserved your food,
healed your wounds,
and brought good fortune.
Today, beyond being the reason why
that burger,
that pretzel,
and those french fries
taste so good right now,
salt is important for
de-icing,
chemical processing,
water treatment,
farming and for several uses
in the oil and gas industry.
It's also made up of two elements that,
on their own, kill you;
but together, they keep you alive.
Want to see what happens
when you put sodium in water?
Do you know what chlorine does to you?
Well, when you put this,
and this, together,
you get...
Two deadly elements combined
into one you can't live without.
Salt has a number of crucial benefits,
like helping your body transmit nerve signals
so that your muscles can relax and contract,
enabling your heart to pump blood.
It's also important for digesting nutrients
and fighting infections.
But hold on there, Mr. Peanut,
you can have too much of a good thing.
While low blood sodium may cause
fatigue,
vomiting,
seizures,
or even death,
too much salt can end up
accumulating between your cells,
thickening your blood,
making your heart work harder,
and often resulting in...
Your body naturally has about
40 teaspoons of salt in it,
or roughly 0.4% of your body weight.
But every time you cry, sweat, or pee,
you lose some of that salt,
and it needs to be replaced.
But that only amounts to one bag of chips,
or two California rolls.
Meanwhile, that burger and fries
you were eyeing
have about 3,400 mg.
So maybe you're thinking
it's time to start cutting back
on your salt intake.
Well, sure, but don't cut it all out.
In the 1930s,
Dr. Robert McCance of Cambridge University's
Department of Experimental Medicine
got 4 volunteers to go 10 days without salt.
First he had them sweat out
all the salt in their bodies,
then he literally desalinated
everything they consumed.
It wasn't long before the participants
began to realize they weren't
tasting much flavor in anything.
Then fatigue set in,
and they became too tired to even eat!
Signs of hyponatremia started to show,
which basically means that
your blood cells start swelling
because there's not enough
salt in your blood to regulate
how much water a cell will consume.
Left untreated, hyponatremia can result
in seizures, coma and death.
At the end of the trial,
participants were given salty foods,
and within minutes they could taste again
and their energy quickly came back.
If that's just 10 days without salt,
imagine if it simply ceased to exist.
We wouldn't last very long.
And not just us,
plants and animals
need salt as much as we do!
The mere desalinization of our oceans
would wipe out all our underwater algae,
cutting photosynthesis on Earth in half.
Land-based plantlife would follow,
and soon we'd be facing an issue
of too much carbon dioxide
and not enough oxygen.
Our climate would go crazy,
fluctuating between extreme
hot and cold temperatures,
with a dramatic surge in hurricanes.
Of course,
tumultuous weather,
food shortages,
and a lack of oxygen
would be even harder to process
since you'd also be suffering from
dizzying headaches,
vomiting,
and extreme fatigue.
Any numbness or chest pain
you might experience
is probably an oncoming heart attack.
But instead of running
for an overcrowded hospital,
get to the nearest convenience store!
If you're lucky, there'll still be some
chips and Gatorade left on the shelves.
But that's assuming that
no one else who is feeling totally helpless
in the face of this mass desalination event
has seen this video!
Look, it's never going to happen,
but you'll be prepared for anything,
as long as you keep watching "What If."