Jam

after drinking a certain amount can water become something your having too much of?

water is basicaly all i drink now, but i drink alot of it, i take a 1.5 liter bottle to work, dont finish it all the time, but when i come home i drink alot too, i have one of those halo 2 collectible slurpee cups from 7/11 (they made me pay full price for the cup even tho i got no slurpee )

So im just wondering if drinking too much water can be a bad thing, or if ill just piss like a race horse

Rdr4evr

I read that there is a condition known as hyponatremia, basically it is the extreme opposite of dehydration. It occurs when the balance between salt and water levels fuck up in your body, it can lead to swelling of the brain and leakage of fluids into the lungs. It normally happens with athletes though (marathon runners and whatnot) because when they sweat they lose both salt and water, yet they only replace the water. If your job doesn't consist of running or anything, you could drink as much as you want as long as you urinate regularly.

Jam

my job envolves no exercise at all, i sit at a desk and wish i was elsewhere :P

Rdr4evr

Then you are good to go........drink away......just make sure you hit the can often

Seaver

The only thing you really have to worry about is pissing away all your vitamins.

An old gunny of ours used to remark, "If you're not pissin' Evian you're wrong". Well you should have a little bit of yellow in your pee. If you have too much water your kidneys just expell much of it without filtering, so you lose vitamins. Take a multi-vitamin in the morning though and you'll be good to go.

sprocket

Actually drinking as much water as you do is very healthy.

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Strange Famous

of course you can drink too much water, at some point it would make you feel "drunk", and if you drank so much you could literally drown... but you would have to drink over 20 pints in a sitting to do it.

The recomended amount if 6-8 pints a day, some people do say you will piss away some vitamins and minerals, but it certainly will do no major harm to drink that much and some people would say it does a lot of good

6-8 pints = aprox 3-4 litres in a 24 hour period

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Seaver

This is right. Chances are you're not drinking nearly enough to be overly hydrated. I'm talking about those hauses who drink water with the 2 gallon jugs at a time, many of my friends do it (working out in the Texas heat you NEED to stay hydrated).

Nazggul

The Human thirst mechanism is a faulty one at best. It tells you you're thirsty after the point at which you really needed to hydrate, and it tells you you're not thirsty before you really have had enough. The basic rule of thumb is to drink until your urine runs clear. That indicates that you are well hydrated. Of course, if you are on suppluments or multi-vitamins that may also affect your urine color. I know mine is usually bright orange! =/

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Cowman

Seaver is right on..you can drink too much water, but the amount you're drinking is nowhere near your "limit". Drink away..

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dman2

I know that when I drink water, I feel soooo much better and have more energy in general. If you are working out a lot or are an athlete, I don't see how you could drink "too much" water unless you are drinking non-stop. The thing that water will do is make you pee a lot.

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VitaminH

Hyponatremia is hard to get to, your kidneys are pretty good at compensating. Plus, the average North American probably has to much salt in their diet anyway, so you're probably getting more than enough sodium to cover anyway.

I wouldn't be too worried about it.

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Cowman

Actually, strangely enough athletes are at a higher risk of drinking too much water then non-athletes. What happens is when you're sweating alot you lose electrolytes, and then by "flooding" your system, you piss out even more electrolytes. No electrolytes = some serious problems..starts off with cramping, leads to other things. A few marathon runners have actually collapsed and died from drinking too much water...freaky stuff.

thats why athletes should make sure to get some electrolytes in with their water , something like a little gatorade or powerade every now and then. Obviously not too much because that stuff is mostly sugar..but a bit..

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tman17m

thats why i drink a lot of water and gatorade...i figure all the salts and stuff that im losing through sweat (when i run at the gym i will sweat out 1.5 lbs of pure water....i weigh myself before and after the run)...so yea, i drink about 2 or so 20oz bottles of gatorade and about 2 20oz bottles of water every day...
that, and im taking creatine, and youre supposed to stay well hydrated with that anyways

Ilow

as everyone else said, you can drink too much but it sounds like you are nowhere near that point. If you get a 1 liter Nalgene bottle and drink a few of those a day you'll be in great shape. Some people actually have a disorder called polidypsia where they have a compulsion to drink and actually enjoy the intoxication that comes from their eloctrolyte imbalance!

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thingstodo

Your body will tell you if yo are drinking too much if you just listen. Otherwise, drink away. It is so much better than all the other things yo could be drinking. And remeber, your body is something like 78% or so water, so yo need it!!

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alpo

One certainly can drink too much water. Just last week I had a patient who presented with seizures because of drinking too much water. For most people, it's not a really a problem; your kidneys can handle the the amount of water you drink without difficulty. In people like the patient I saw last week, you can flood your kidneys by drinking MASSIVE quantities of water. In her case, she was drinking anywhere between 20 and 30 liters of water per day. I still haven't figured out how she had time to do that. I'd recommend drinking enough water so that you aren't thirsty. I won't get into the evidence (or lack of evidence) for drinking X number of 8oz glasses of water per day.

godxzilla

great info alpo. nice to have an expert instead of the typical "i read this somewhere" folks!

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Mike

Ilow

so are you saying that everyone else posting doesn't know what their talking about?

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1slOwCD8

I always try to drink as much water as possible. I didnt know that you could drink too much water, though. I mostly drink a lot of water because of the aquafina commerical. "Drink, Drink, Drink to your Health!"

godxzilla

not so much here, but on the internet as a whole. dont try to turn this around - im just giving him acknowledgement.

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Rdr4evr

I was the only one who said that I've read somewhere.....oh well, I figure the only way of gaining knowledge is either experience or studying, and since I didn't have experience on this specific subject, I read about it instead.

godxzilla

I was not referring to this thread. it was just a breath of fresh air to hear some real world experience. folks you dont have to be quite so defensive! its the internet, you need to have somewhat thick skin.

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alpo

I hope I didn't really incite a mini-flame war here. Just thought I'd add a little bit of my knowledge to the discussion. There is a lot of health information out there on the web - some good, some not so good.

Rdr4evr was right on about high performance athletes getting hyponatremia. People who drink lots and lots of beer also can get it. So watch out for how much you drink

dman2

Of course you can have more serious problems from drinking too much beer. It would likely take less beer for most people than water to kill them.

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darkangel

I recently put down the soda can and and started carrying around my 1L water bottle.

One time I decided I was going to attempt 2L in one sitting, and I finished it. But I felt like I had just eaten about 6 happy meals and that was it..

Squishor

Some non-expert input: When I was living in Japan in the 70s, there was a family who apparently went on some crazy water-intensive diet and at least some of them died. It was in the news.