| Am I drinking too much water? |
| It is unlikely that you are drinking too much water. However, there is a condition known as "water intoxication," which is usually associated with athletes that intake too much drinking water while completing long distance events like running and cycling. Water intoxication, or consuming excessive amounts of drinking water, was reported in 18% of marathon runners and in 29% of the finishers in a Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon, as recently reported in published studies in the Annals of Internal Medicine and in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise respectively. When drinking too much water, what happens is the athlete consumes large amounts of drinking water over the course of the event and blood plasma (the liquid part of blood) increases. As this takes place, the salt content of the blood is diluted. At the same time, the athlete is losing salt by sweating. Consequently, the amount of salt available to the body tissue decreases over time to a point where the loss interferes with brain, heart, and muscle functions. The official name for this condition is hyponatremia. The symptoms of drinking too much water generally mirror those of dehydration (apathy, confusion, nausea, and fatigue), although some individuals show no symptoms at all. If untreated, hyponatremia can lead to coma and even death. You need to consume enough drinking water, but avoid drinking too much water. The fluid requirement for the majority of endurance athletes, under most conditions, is about 8 to 16 ounces per hour. There is considerable variation here, of course, due to individual sweating rates, body size and weight, heat and humidity, and running speed, and other factors. Consuming much more than this amount of drinking water or other fluid is, in most instances, probably physiologically excessive as well as uncomfortable, as liquid sloshes around in the gut during the activity. Home Page | FAQs | Glossary | Contact Us |