Too much water?

Question

Hi.. I was just wondering it's bad to drink a lot of water. I mean, i know it's good to drink water but I'm talking bout A LOT.. i drink water all the time when i'm in front of the computer. I sit with a waterbottle in my hand/mouth till it gets empty and then I go and refill it from the tap.. :P when i wake up i drink like 5 glasses before breakfast. is this good or bad??

Answer 1

Sounds to me you that you are a diabetic.

I would make an appointment with your doctor.

You should drink at least 2 qts of fluid a day.

Liquid H2O is the sine qua non of life. Making up about 66 percent of the human body, water runs through the blood, inhabits the cells, and lurks in the spaces between. At every moment water escapes the body through sweat, urination, defecation or exhaled breath, among other routes. Replacing these lost stores is essential but rehydration can be overdone. There is such a thing as a fatal water overdose.

Earlier this year, a 28-year-old California woman died after competing in a radio station's on-air water-drinking contest. After downing some six liters of water in three hours in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" (Nintendo game console) contest, Jennifer Strange vomited, went home with a splitting headache, and died from so-called water intoxication.

There are many other tragic examples of death by water. In 2005 a fraternity hazing at California State University, Chico, left a 21-year-old man dead after he was forced to drink excessive amounts of water between rounds of push-ups in a cold basement. Club-goers taking MDMA ("ecstasy") have died after consuming copious amounts of water trying to rehydrate following long nights of dancing and sweating. Going overboard in attempts to rehydrate is also common among endurance athletes. A 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that close to one sixth of marathon runners develop some degree of hyponatremia, or dilution of the blood caused by drinking too much water.

Hyponatremia, a word cobbled together from Latin and Greek roots, translates as "insufficient salt in the blood." Quantitatively speaking, it means having a blood sodium concentration below 135 millimoles per liter, or approximately 0.4 ounces per gallon, the normal concentration lying somewhere between 135 and 145 millimoles per liter. Severe cases of hyponatremia can lead to water intoxication, an illness whose symptoms include headache, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, frequent urination and mental disorientation.

In humans the kidneys control the amount of water, salts and other solutes leaving the body by sieving blood through their millions of twisted tubules. When a person drinks too much water in a short period of time, the kidneys cannot flush it out fast enough and the blood becomes waterlogged. Drawn to regions where the concentration of salt and other dissolved substances is higher, excess water leaves the blood and ultimately enters the cells, which swell like balloons to accommodate it.

Most cells have room to stretch because they are embedded in flexible tissues such as fat and muscle, but this is not the case for neurons. Brain cells are tightly packaged inside a rigid boney cage, the skull, and they have to share this space with blood and cerebrospinal fluid, explains Wolfgang Liedtke, a clinical neuroscientist at Duke University Medical Center. "Inside the skull there is almost zero room to expand and swell," he says.

Thus, brain edema, or swelling, can be disastrous. "Rapid and severe hyponatremia causes entry of water into brain cells leading to brain swelling, which manifests as seizures, coma, respiratory arrest, brain stem herniation and death," explains M. Amin Arnaout, chief of nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Where did people get the idea that guzzling enormous quantities of water is healthful? A few years ago Heinz Valtin, a kidney specialist from Dartmouth Medical School, decided to determine if the common advice to drink eight, eight-ounce glasses of water per day could hold up to scientific scrutiny. After scouring the peer-reviewed literature, Valtin concluded that no scientific studies support the "eight x eight" dictum (for healthy adults living in temperate climates and doing mild exercise). In fact, drinking this much or more "could be harmful, both in precipitating potentially dangerous hyponatremia and exposure to pollutants, and also in making many people feel guilty for not drinking enough," he wrote in his 2002 review for the American Journal of Physiology—Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. And since he published his findings, Valtin says, "not a single scientific report published in a peer-reviewed publication has proven the contrary."

Most cases of water poisoning do not result from simply drinking too much water, says Joseph Verbalis, chairman of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. It is usually a combination of excessive fluid intake and increased secretion of vasopression (also called antidiuretic hormone), he explains. Produced by the hypothalamus and secreted into the bloodstream by the posterior pituitary gland, vasopressin instructs the kidneys to conserve water. Its secretion increases in periods of physical stress—during a marathon, for example—and may cause the body to conserve water even if a person is drinking excessive quantities.

Every hour, a healthy kidney at rest can excrete 800 to 1,000 milliliters, or 0.21 to 0.26 gallon, of water and therefore a person can drink water at a rate of 800 to 1,000 milliliters per hour without experiencing a net gain in water, Verbalis explains. If that same person is running a marathon, however, the stress of the situation will increase vasopressin levels, reducing the kidney's excretion capacity to as low as 100 milliliters per hour. Drinking 800 to 1,000 milliliters of water per hour under these conditions can potentially lead a net gain in water, even with considerable sweating, he says.

While exercising, "you should balance what you're drinking with what you're sweating," and that includes sports drinks, which can also cause hyponatremia when consumed in excess, Verbalis advises. "If you're sweating 500 milliliters per hour, that is what you should be drinking."

But measuring sweat output is not easy. How can a marathon runner, or any person, determine how much water to consume? As long as you are healthy and equipped with a thirst barometer unimpaired by old age or mind-altering drugs, follow Verbalis's advice, "drink to your thirst. It's the best indicator."

Answer 2

its just water! but u might have an addiction you are wierd no offense

Answer 3

thats ok just dont over do it

Answer 4

I think you are drinking to much, and i have heard about people drowning themselves inside from drink to much water. Try and limit to about a litre a day. Or you can try adding fifferent squashes to it!

Answer 5

It's not bad but it might make your feel like you're going to vomit/get a bad stomach ache.

Answer 6

Too much of anything is bad. You can drown yourself from drinking too much water too fast. But it almost has to be intentional in order for that to happen.

Just remember to drink in moderation like with everything else.

"Can You Really Drink Too Much Water?

In a word, yes. Drinking too much water can lead to a condition known as water intoxication and to a related problem resulting from the dilution of sodium in the body, hyponatremia."

"It's Not How Much You Drink, It's How Fast You Drink It!

The kidneys of a healthy adult can process fifteen liters of water a day! You are unlikely to suffer from water intoxication, even if you drink a lot of water, as long as you drink over time as opposed to intaking an enormous volume at one time. As a general guideline, most adults need about three quarts of fluid each day. Much of that water comes from food, so 8-12 eight ounce glasses a day is a common recommended intake. You may need more water if the weather is very warm or very dry, if you are exercising, or if you are taking certain medications. The bottom line is this: it's possible to drink too much water, but unless you are running a marathon or an infant, water intoxication is a very uncommon condition."

Answer 7

Water is great for you!! You are actually supposed to have your body weight in ounces cut in half. For an example, if you weigh 100lbs, drink 50oz per day! If you are not feeling sick from it, keep on drinking. Your body will let you know when you have had enough! I hope that I was help!

Answer 8

THATS ALOT OF WATER! but it will only hurt you if you drink like a quart of water all  at once.

Answer 9

To much water to fast can make your brain swell and make you die, try eating a lite breakfast first and cut back on the water a little

Answer 10

a bit 2 much

Answer 11

http://www.watercure.com/

Congratulations on drinking water!!

On a different site~

The average urine output for adults is 1.5 liters a day. You lose close to an additional liter of water a day through breathing, sweating and bowel movements. Food usually accounts for 20 percent of your total fluid intake, so if you consume 2 liters of water or other beverages a day (a little more than 8 cups) along with your normal diet, you will typically replace the lost fluids.

    *  The Institute of Medicine advises that men consume roughly 3.0 liters (about 13 cups) of total beverages a day and women consume 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of total beverages a day.

Even apart from the above approaches, it is generally the case that if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce between one and two liters of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate.

Answer 12

You might want to consult with a physician.  Constant thirst is a common symptom of Diabetes.

Answer 13

Most of us only need 8 - 8 ounce glasses of water unless exercising a lot or playing sports or in a marathon. If you drink too much water, eventually the kidneys will not be able to work fast enough to remove sufficient amounts from the body, so the blood becomes more dilute with low salt concentrations.

gOoD lUK x

Answer 14

I would go see your doctor.

A common sympton of diabetes is extreme thirst.

Answer 15

if you drink too much at one time yes it can be bad if you over flood yourself with water it will s***w up the ph of your blood and can even lead to death. another thing about as much as you drink is if you are always thirsty see your dr about getting checked for diabetes insaitable thirst can be one of the symptoms

Answer 16

I will keep it simple for you. 2.litters a day is good.

Answer 17

Its good. There is no such thing as drinking to much water

Answer 18

its good

but dont overload

i had a friend that took ecstacy

she drank so much water she drowned

and died

it will fill your lungs up

but i think your body would stop you

cuz ur prolly not on x

Answer 19

im exactly like you!

I love water.

nothing is wrong with drinking too much :D

it's actually good for your body!

but you might have to pee alot.

haha!

nothing is wrong with drinking too much :]

Answer 20

You can suffer from water intoxication or hyponatremia. It usually happens to baby's or athlete's but it could happen to you. The reccommended amount of water you should have is half of your weight in ounces. So... If you weight 120, you should drink 60 ounces a day. I know it seems crazy that drinking too much water can do that to you because I used to be addicted. I would drink about 2 or 3 liters a day but now I try not to drink over 2 liters/ 8 cups.