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Title: Water watch Post by oringkid on May 1st, 2002, 9:15am I have been meaning to look this up and post something on it. I don't know how many here are using this at this point, but here goes. In reference to the water therapy. I had a friend who went on a popular diet that included the intake of large amounts of water (diet worked really well btw) but they warned her of drinking too much water. I looked this up on the internet and found that there is a condition that can actually be deadly from drinking too much water in short periods of time, it is called "water intoxication" or hyponatremia. From what I could tell it is when your salt concentration becomes too low because your blood plasma increases with the extra water and acts like dehydration at first, but can be deadly. Now, how much is too much? That was harder to find. I found one site that said don't drink more that 2 gallons a day. (now there is no way I could drink that much, but when fighting the beast, you never know what we will do) I think that this would probably never be a problem, but you just never know, and I thought it might be prudent to post a warning just the same. I am hoping that one of our resident doctors here on the board might shed a bit more light on this condition and the "how much is too much" question. Just FYI. Sherry |
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Title: Re: Water watch Post by Tom on May 1st, 2002, 4:38pm Hi Sherry, it's impossible to establish "how much (water) is too much" in absolute terms as even "normal" individual water requirements depend of the body/environment temperature, one's weight and hight, muscle activity (sweating), the food you eat etc (a meal of salty ham makes you feel thirsty because the surplus salt causes higher osmotic pressure in the blood and requires water to be diluted and eliminated with the urine). Persons with certain kidney and heart deseases may generally tolerate smaller amounts of water than healthy ones. On the other hand, under clinical conditions certain medical treatments (like the so called "forced diuresis" to wash out toxic substances) may require an i.v. water input of > 3 gallons/day, provided the concerned patient is otherwise healthy and you substitute permanently the electrolytes lost with the huge amount of urine. Yes, an important question is the electrolytic quality of the water you drink: Tap water contains practically ±0 electrolytes and is as such theoretically "toxic", as long as you don't enrich it with the needed electrolytes - everybody does it automatically with the (balanced) food he/she eats. "Toxic" means that, without a proper electrolyte supply, pure (tap)water washes electrolytes out off the body and thus causes an osmotic disequilibrium in the different body fluids. And, "water intoxication" doesn't only cause a hyponatriemia = too low sodium level in the blood, it also causes too low levels of other electrolytes. Look at the following table with the ± daily requirements of Minerals (Electrolytes) Calcium 800 mg Phosphorus 800 mg Potassium 2000 mg Sulfur Sodium 500 mg Chlorine 2000 mg Magnesium 300 - 350 mg -------------------------------------- Trace Minerals Iron 10 - 18 mg Zinc 15 mg Selenium 0.05 - 0.07 mg Manganese 2.0 - 5. 0 mg Copper 1.5 - 3. 0 mg Iodine 0.15 mg Molybdenum 0.075 - 0.25 mg Cobalt (as vitamin B12) 0.15 - 0.5 mg Chromium 0.05 - 0.2 mg ------------------------------------------------------ Possibly essential Silicon Vanadium Nickel Arsenic Boron Fluorine Tin Barium ------------------------------------ Also present in the body Gold Silver Aluminum Mercury Bismuth Gallium Lead Antimony Lithium So, how much water is too much... ? I would say: Drinking several days in sequence essentially more water than your thirst asks for would require an additional electrolyte supply, in form of mineral tablets for example. Because (simplified), in a "normal" person, thirst means: "osmotic pressure in the blood is to high = electrolytes are not enough deluted"/no thirst means: "osmotic pressure and dilution o.k.",/ and drinking beyond the thirst means:"washing out the needed electrolytes and reduce the osmotic pressure of the blood and so possibly cause disturbances of the heart rhythm, blood pressure, muscle function etc.". Thomas |
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Title: Re: Water watch Post by oringkid on May 1st, 2002, 6:54pm Wow! Thanks Thomas! It is too cool to have a doc on the board! |
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