From the time that my generation was conscious of our surroundings, we have been told to always stay hydrated, with mothers and grandmothers nagging that we’re never drinking enough, that we’re going to pass out if we don’t carry a reusable water bottle around. All this focus on hydration has resulted in one of the most fully hydrated generations of all time. On this campus, it is uncommon to see someone walking around without some sort of beverage on their person. This constant hydration is said to be good for you, but often times, doing things that are good for you too often results in bad things happening, such as taking too many Gummi-Vitamins (this can lead to internal bleeding, and occasionally death). This caused me to research the potentially harmful effects of over-hydration, and to see if we are an over-hydrated people.
There is a common anecdote about the harms of too much water. In Los Angeles in 2007, a radio station held a water drinking contest, and one contestant, Jennifer Strange, died from water intoxication, or hyponatremia. Strange’s sodium content became so diluted in her bloodstream due to the excessive amount of water that she consumed, which caused her brain to swell, eventually causing her death. This anecdote shows that there are negative consequences of consuming too much water, but I’ll have to dig further to see if there is widespread evidence of overconsumption leading to physical harm.
Joseph Verbalis, the chairman of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center says, “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”. I have a Nalgene bottle which holds 1000 milliliters, and i usually go through one in less than an hour. The daily suggested water intake is within the confines of Verbalis’ suggestion, though, “Today, the IOM liberally recommends an even higher volume of total daily water intake: 3.7 liters (15 cups) for the average adult male and 2.7 liters (11 cups) for the average adult female.”
This suggested amount is far below what is harmful to the human body according to what Verbalis recommends, but the suggested amount is not necessarily what the average American consumes.
As seen in the chart above, neither children (ages 2-18) or adults (19+) have an average consumption that comes anywhere close to being at risk for hyponatremia. Another thing to notice, though, is that the values for average intake are also nowhere near the IOM’s recommendations.
Based off the research that I have done on this topic, I have come to two conclusions. The first, and the most pertinent to this blog is that, yes, too much water can be very harmful to you. There are countless anecdotes of hyponatremia just like Jennifer Strange’s. The second conclusion, though, is that as a nation, we do not consume too much water, and in fact, we consume much less than the recommended daily value, which is FAR below the value that puts you at risk for hyponatremia. I came into this blog with a concern over over-hydration, but now I am only concerned with dehydration, which, by the way, can also cause hyponatremia. Go figure.
I really enjoyed this blog post because it was interesting and well written. I actually looked at this post because when I saw the title I immediately thought of the incident, which you actually mentioned in your post, where the women died during the contest from drinking too much water. I always was told drinking a lot of water was good because it kept you hydrated and flushed out toxins, so I was surprised to hear that hyponatremia is actually a condition. I just thought what happened to that women was a freak accident, but thanks to your post now I know it wasn’t.
I found this article very surprising and interesting, yet as I thought more about it and researched cases of people dying from water consumption, I began to see a trend. The first example is “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” (Ballantyne) the extremely large amount of water coupled with the short time span caused his death unfortunately. Secondly, “club-goers taking MDMA (“ecstasy”) have died after consuming copious amounts of water trying to rehydrate following long nights of dancing and sweating” (Ballantyne), reiterating the same situation as in the first example; too much water in too little time. Lastly, athletes tend to have issues regulating their water intake, “a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that close to one sixth of marathon runners develop some degree of hyponatremia” (Ballantyne). Hyponatremia, or “dilution of the blood caused by drinking too much water”Ballantyne) is one of the most common causes that has caused death by copious amounts of water. In each of these three cases, people were attempting (still applicable in the first example even if he was forced) to replenish the amount of water that they felt they had lost in their system, thinking that this was helping them. Lastly, when reading this article, I found it interesting when doctor asked the question, “where did we get the idea that chugging water was good?”(Ballantyne). Although it is true that most people do not drink enough water,”you should balance how much water you are drinking with what you’re sweating” (Ballantyne), too much of anything, even water is not healthy.
Citation:
Ballantyne, Coco. “Strange but True: Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill.” Scientific American Global RSS. 21 June 2007. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.
While this post is well written, I can’t help but notice the absence of any kind of experiment or observational study in your post to support the theory that the overconsumption of water is bad for you. The chairman of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center could be making statements about the overconsumption of water without drawing evidence from any legitimate experiments himself. While this is highly unlikely, it is possible. An example of an experiment concerning the overconsumption of water is here. It talks about how scientists screened the brain of voluntary participants in order to see their regional brain responses after drinking too much water. Make sure you back up your scientific arguments with experiments because you never know if the information you’re talking about is irrelevant or illegitimate.
I really liked this blog post. I had never heard of the story about the person who died from drinking too much water. It’s a very troubling anecdote but an interesting and informative one at the same time. I really like how you walked the reader through the blog post and how you give conclusions at the end that make me think about water intake. I might not be drinking enough water myself and this post put my attention towards that. I really enjoyed this post and how it was written. Great work!
There are anecdotes like Strange’s, but these generally come from an excessive amount of water taken in, much more than any person who stays hydrated would take in. It is surprising that the recommended amount is more than what Americans intake daily since people do appear to stay hydrated. I wonder whether there is a large range between what people take in, or if there are heavy outliers on the low end keeping the average down.
Very interesting blog post– I myself am a huge water drinker and will always have a bottle on me at all times. I like to stay hydrated for many health reasons. It was interesting to learn that too much water could be toxic to our overall health and well being because as you said it is so strongly talked about in today’s day in age. When reading the section about male consumption compared to that of females, it made me wonder why that is? Does overall weight affect how much water we should be drinking? Why is it that males need more to sustain a healthy lifestyle while females do not? I found this really interesting article which goes into more detail as to why this is… http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/men-can-drink-more-women-say-what
Nice job.