Weight-Loss Death by Drinking TOO MUCH Water

Weight-Loss
Sirant,

I don't have a problem with people who advocate a minimum of 64 oz. and if it helped you to lose weight, all the better. The issue I have is with the misinformation, look at the post just before yours. Kidney damage? Show me the science. So far not a single person this site has shown me a scientific study to back up this 8 glasses a day myth.

Read below:

"The report, issued today by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, says that most healthy Americans meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide, rather than by following the old "eight to nine glasses a day" rule.

...Instead of prescribing eight, 8-ounce cups of water per day, these new recommendations allow you to count the fluid you get from foods and from all the beverages you consume.

...But in a change from the past, the panel loosened the requirements on how people can meet those recommendations, allowing caffeinated beverages, such as soda and coffee, and food to count toward total water intake. Although caffeine has been thought to have a diuretic effect, researchers say studies show that effect is only temporary.

..."We don't offer any rule of thumb based on how many glasses of water people should drink each day because our hydration needs can be met through a variety of sources in addition to drinking water," says panel chairman Lawrence Appel, MD, MPH, in a news release. "While drinking water is a frequent choice for hydration, people also get water from juice, milk, coffee, tea, soda, fruits, vegetables, and other foods and beverages as well.

"Moreover, we concluded that on a daily basis, people get adequate amounts of water from normal drinking behavior -- consumption of beverages at meals and in other social situations -- and by letting their thirst guide them," says Appel, who is also professor of medicine, epidemiology, and international health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

I rest my case.
 
Liquid said:
The issue I have is with the misinformation, look at the post just before yours. Kidney damage? Show me the science.
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Prevention tip #1: Drinking enough water to make 2 to 2.5 liters of urine per day.





Prevention tip #1: "Drink more liquids - water is best."





"many astronauts do not drink enough water while in space, so their urine output is lower, and the food they consume is higher in sodium, which also increases the risk for kidney stone development."





Prevention tip #1: "Drinking more fluids. Try to drink 8 to 10 glasses of water per day. "






"Kidney stones form when there is a high level of calcium (hypercalciuria), oxalate (hyperoxaluria), or uric acid (hyperuricosuria) in the urine; a lack of citrate in the urine; or insufficient water in the kidneys to dissolve waste products. The kidneys must maintain an adequate amount of water in the body to remove waste products. If dehydration occurs, high levels of substances that do not dissolve completely (e.g., calcium, oxalate, uric acid) may form crystals that slowly build up into kidney stones."






#1 cause: dehydration
 
"Each kidney filters about 1700 liters of blood per day and concentrates fluid and waste products into about 1 liter of urine per day. Because of this, the kidneys receive more exposure to toxic substances in the body than almost any other organ. Therefore, they are highly susceptible to injury from toxic substances."


Seems to me like you'd want to dilute all this concentrated junk. :cool:
 
Astronauts and Wikipedia, etc. Don't doubt the connection between kidney stones and abnormally low intake of fluid but I think we are talking about two different things. What I am looking for is something like this:

Findings of study in the New England Journal of Medicine confirm that healthy adults must consume 8 glasses of water per day or else they will be in a permanent state of dehydration and will damage their kidneys. Researchers confirm that feeling thirsty is an indicator of measurable dehydration, people are urged to drink even though they don't feel like it to avoid this condition.

No such study exists from any national organization, university or research center. This 8 rule is based on speculation and completely contrived. There was a study done on elite runners (world's best) in Kenya, suprisingly their water intake was well below what the water advocates would consider normal considering they run about 14 miles per day. They also eat a very high carb diet (so much for South Beach and Atkins).

Eat when you are hungry and drink when you are thirsty, common sense. Animals have been doing that for eons, you don't see them totting around water bottles everywhere they go.

Next time I see my doctor I'll make sure I'm thirsty then I'll ask him if I am dehydrated. Can't wait to see him laugh...
 
Liquid said:
There was a study done on elite runners (world's best) in Kenya, suprisingly their water intake was well below what the water advocates would consider normal considering they run about 14 miles per day. They also eat a very high carb diet (so much for South Beach and Atkins).
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I'd love to see an elite runner on anything BUT a high carb diet. Whoever thinks that Atkins and hardcore running could even remotely go together is a certified idiot. I'm surprised that you're acting as if this surprises you.
 
I think everyone is missing the point....

Please refer to the title of this thread originally:

Drinking too much water is bad for you?

No one was asking about dehydration, kidney stones, or the fact a person MUST drink 8 glasses a day or not.

The answer should have been very simple.

Yes, drinking gallons of water in one sitting or during a marathon can be very bad for you. Period. And yes, it can kill you. But it is a very specific and extreme condition not many of us are ever likely to experience....

Hands up all the over-weight marathon runners in the group.....
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

My big beef is that it turns into a debate on how much is good or bad, and that was never the question. LIke I have said more times than I can count on this site, find something that works for you and stick with it. All this talk of myths, gimmicks, fads, etc is useless information that could do more harm than the original question intended I am sure. I really have seen postings on this site of people saying they will stop drinking water for fear of dying. How is that productive?

I have no problem with people saying you dont have to drink 8 glasses a day. Thats fine, I would never force myself or anyone to do so. So fine, you dont need to drink 8 glasses. I agree 100%.

I do have a problem with people going off on how "dangerous" over consuming water can be when it could so easily be taken out of context. This also holds true for the counter argument about drinking enough water. Once again, giving all the worst case scenarios (kidney stones, liver failure, dehydration, etc) could actually force someone to believe they must drink more water than they are comfortable with. Fear mongering and scare tactics can actually lead people who rely on our "unbiased" opinions to do something they may personally regret or suffer from later.

"But they said on WLF that water can kill you!!"

"I pee 50 times a day because the group said I had to drink more than I feel confortable with!"

Who wants that on their shoulders?

I would never tell anyone they MUST drink 8 glasses a day, nor would I tell anyone that it is a valueless gimmick. A gimmick to do what? Make the water companies rich? I think not. As a harmless gimmick most people could do much worse. Just ask any of the families of the deceased ephedra users.....

Why not shed some light on that issue and scare the shit out of people so they stop taking that drug? Much more prodcutive than making people fear water... So many more important issues to be worrying about.

Aren't we all here to support and help each other? How do scare tactics about an essential element of life on earth support or help anyone?

Once again, in response to the original posters question:

Drinking too much water is bad for you?

Yes, but only in extreme conditions and medical situations. Drinking 8 glasses a day, more or less, is not bad for you, unless it makes you uncomfortable or makes you pee too much. The general rules of common sense come to play.

Every person is different and that should be taken into account. If I followed Toms plans for example I would suffer all day from migrane headaches, that my doctor told me years ago was a direct result of dehydration. So I started drinking lots of water and I have never felt better.

Sorry to drag this on so long people, but lets try to let common sense prevail. No one is going to get hurt or suffer from drinking a "normal" amount of water (based on the persons individual needs). Nor is everyone going to suffer from liver failire or kidney stones if they dont drink 8 glasses a day. But by giving them the scariest and most extreme examples possible, of either side of the debate, we are only making the overall problem worse and possibly creating a bad situation.

sirant
 
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sirant said:
Sorry to drag this on so long people, but lets try to let common sense prevail. No one is going to get hurt or suffer from drinking a "normal" amount of water (based on the persons individual needs). Nor is everyone going to suffer from liver failire or kidney stones if they dont drink 8 glasses a day. But by giving them the scariest and most extreme examples possible, of either side of the debate, we are only making the overall problem worse and possibly creating a bad situation.
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I really wasn't trying to talk about a worst case scenario by any means when I mentioned kidney stones so I'm not going to apologize for it. Do the math. I saw one site that said about 13% of men and 7% of women will have kidney stones sometime in their life. That's about 10%... 300 million people in America... so 30 million Americans will have kidney stones in their lives, not counting elsewhere in the world. Other sites have also mentioned about 10% of the population. 1985 alone had one million cases in the US and the rate is increasing, it's always over a million cases every year just in the US. Pretty much anywhere you look, the #1 cause of these kidney stones listed is not drinking enough water. I don't think that's a scary out-of-the-ordinary scare tactic whatsoever. It looks like a pretty common thing to me.

Compare these figures to the massive 1 or 2 people per year getting death by hyponatremia that everybody is scared about and I think it's obvious which story is a scare tactic and which one is the harsh truth. I mean, if some of these stats are correct, your chances of getting kidney stones sometime in your life due to not drinking enough vs. death by hyponatremia is like 30,000,000:1. That's probably wrong, but it's still crazy, up in the millions to one. With those kinds of odds, I'm placing my bets on drinking a little more than what I actually need.
 
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The discussion was about how much water to drink now it seems we are on to kidney stones. The simple points I am trying to make are the following:

1. Eight glasses a day is a myth, no medical study has ever proven this.
2. A lot of water comes from the food you eat, this DOES count (don't tell me it vanishes somewhere).
3. Contrary to popular belief sodas, beer, wine, tea, do count as well, many of these drinks are 80-90% water. Elite distance runners from Kenya get 1/2 their liquid intake from tea and by the way they consume only 2 liters per day in liquid form despite running 14 miles at high speed.
4. You drink when you are thirsty, this has worked for millions of years. Being thirsty doesn't mean you are dehydrated. It can be a symptom (along with others) of dehydration but this doesn't mean it is, this would be like saying "I have a headache, headaches are a symptom of a brain tumor, therefore I have a brain tumor".

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Reference Material
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1. "...Thirteen percent had hyponatremia (a serum sodium concentration of 135 mmol per liter or less); 0.6 percent had critical hyponatremia (120 mmol per liter or less). ...Conclusions Hyponatremia occurs in a substantial fraction of nonelite marathon runners and can be severe." Source: New England Journal of Medicine, article "Hyponatremia among Runners in the Boston Marathon".

2. "University of British Columbia nutrition Prof. Susan Barr is part of a joint Canadian and American team of doctors and nutritionists who are looking at how much water people actually need. Scientists are rethinking whether we need eight glasses of water a day.
Barr said they couldn't find any scientific evidence to support the eight to 10 glass recommendation."

3. "In an invited review published online by the American Journal of Physiology August 8, Valtin, the Vail and Hampers professor emeritus of physiology at Dartmouth Medical School, reports no supporting evidence to back this popular counsel, commonly known as "8 x 8" (for eight, eight-ounce glasses)." Source: Darmouth Medical School

4. Kidney specialists do agree on one thing, however: that the 8x8 rule is a gross overestimate of any required minimum. To replace daily losses of water, an average sized adult with healthy kidneys sitting in a temperate climate needs no more than one liter of fluid. Source: National Institutes of Health, Kidney Physiologist Jurgen Schnermann


Excellent web site with sources listed:



I'm off now to buy some magnetic bracelets now to ward off evil toxins in my body, lol.
 
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Liquid said:
Elite distance runners from Kenya get 1/2 their liquid intake from tea and by the way they consume only 2 liters per day in liquid form despite running 14 miles at high speed.
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Kenyan's are from Kenya... it's hot over there... they're bred for it and are used to it. Most of us aren't exactly genetically similar to Kenyan distance runners by any means. The lack of water intake isn't what makes them great. Alot of places over there doesn't have clean running water so many are used to lower intake. Severe dehydration is rampant over there, and no we're not talking about the mild stuff that's been mentioned in this thread. People die from droughts over there. Kidney stones are the least of worries for many rural Kenyan's. Wikipedia actually says that the reason they're so fast is that historically due to water being scarce, they have to regularly run long distances in short amounts of time to fetch their water and bring it back before the sun evaporates it. Plus, some of the studies you're talking about were actually wondering of the Kenyan's could be even better if they followed the recommendations, not wondering why the lack of following the recommendations made them great. So, given the entire situation, mentioning that Kenyan distance runners drink small amounts of water is really neither surprising or impressive.

I could also mention that many Kenyan's run barefoot. Is that what makes them great? Does that mean that everybody should run barefoot? Should we dismiss and laugh at anybody that says you should get a decent pair of running shoes if you're going to run just because some of the most elite runners in the world go barefoot?

Most people would break in half if they did what Kenyan's did.
 
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Let's not make the mistake now of assuming that the cause of kidney stones is dehydration! That simply isn't a true statement. In fact, we don't know for certain what causes kidney stones. They think that dehydration increases the risk of stones, but kidney stones also are related to excess levels of vitamin D, an overactive parathyroid gland, too much meat in the diet, gout, chemo treatment for cancer, urinary tract infections, and a bunch of other things.

Hyponatremia, as rare as it is, has one very well known cause - drinking too much water.

Again, I agree to a certain extent with Sirant - this whole debate is somewhat ridiculous, as long as people accept the idea the each individual is different and will be comfortable with varying amounts of water. Drinking lots of water will help some people lose weight, and it won't help others at all.
 
You get off track very quickly, the discussion is what constitutes adequate water consumption. My illustration of using the runners from Kenya was merely to prove that 8x8 is a myth which is already known in scientific circles. Your suggestion that wealthy world class runners who are famous in their country may not have access to water is ridiculous. The argument isn't that they are great runners despite not guzzling water every two minutes, it is that they don't suffer from it and neither do I and I'm from a temperate climate.

The last 50 years is littered with the detritus of fads and marketing hype, 8x8 will eventually go that way as well. As long as people don't have common sense there will be others happy to take advantage of them.

Let us agree to disagree, lol, you wore me out.
 
TomO said:
Let's not make the mistake now of assuming that the cause of kidney stones is dehydration! That simply isn't a true statement. In fact, we don't know for certain what causes kidney stones. They think that dehydration increases the risk of stones, but kidney stones also are related to excess levels of vitamin D, an overactive parathyroid gland, too much meat in the diet, gout, chemo treatment for cancer, urinary tract infections, and a bunch of other things.
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Well, yes and no... stones are caused by the high concentration of all these chemicals and others. But, why do you think they're that concentrated in the first place??? Drinking water dilutes these chemicals and helps your kidneys flush them out so they're not so concentrated that they form into kidney stones.
 
Shame on you Tom. Don't you realize that drinking huge amounts of water prevents kidney stones, cures cancer, and rids the body of all toxic wastes so you will never get sick?

I don't have to drink that much water because I have an ultra magnetic bracelet that has the same effect.
 
How Much Water Is Too Much Water

So, I weight about 189 and I am drinking about 5 16oz mugs of water a day. Is that too much or should I be drinking more... I am also peeing every2 minutes! That part is ruining my life lol but the water drinking has helped me lose few pounds ... any suggestions!????!
 
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I too have been drinking a lot more water. I have given up on drinking pop. I have been "sober" lol for a little more than 2 weeks. What I have read and learned about drinking water is this. Water does help you lose weight. It helps flush out unneed and unwanted fats and other stuff from your body system. 5 8 oz glasses of water a day is for an average person. But I read in a few articles that if you are over weight you should add 8oz of water to every 25lbs that you are over weight. I know what you mean about going to the bathroom alot. But I rather do that then be fat for the rest of my life. I think after sometime your body will adjust to the increase of water you are putting into your body and once you "detox" from all the unwated stuff water flushes out you might beable to get back to going more normally. Now I wouldn't recomend you drinking 3 glasses of water within 30 minutes...you can seriously make yourself sick by drinking too much water. Space your water drinking through out the day. Before meals is the best to...it fills you up so you eat less.

Here are a few websites that I found helpful:



Hope this helps!

Jenny
 
lets not forgot that 5 eight oz glasses is the bare min. ive always heard 8 glass but thats still min. what i have read is you split you weight in 2 and thats how many oz of water you need
 
There have been so many hard headed arguments on this forum as to how much water is enough water or too much water that it makes me want to drown myself in all that water...

best answer is - drink as much water as you think you need... there's a slight danger of too much water that results in water intoxication (there's a technical tetm I'm too lazy to look up) but that tends to only happen to marathon class athletes...

The method I go with is monitoring the color of your urine- it should be a pale yellow... if it is -you're drinking enough water... but it's really abou thow you feel..
 
All this stuff about everyone walking around dehydrated is a pure urban myth. Mal said it best - "drink as much water as you think you need."

The condition Mal was referring to is called hyponatremia. Actually, it's the biggest medical problem now in most "ultra" events -- marathons, bike races, etc. And typically it affects not the seasoned athletes, who generally know better, but the people who have just started into a sport and have bought into all this crap about how you'll die if you don't drink gallons of water every day. The amateurs are drinking a cup of water at every station, and after a couple of hours of that, they're literally intoxicating themselves.

Here's an from the Dartmouth School of Medicine about it if you're interested.

Also, while drinking water may make you feel full, the idea that water "flushes the fat away" is a gross oversimplification of the human metabolic system. Fat cells don't get flushed away, anyway. They shrink. And generally, they shrink because your body is in a caloric deficit, and your fat cells are good at storing calories that can be used by the body to carry out its normal functions.

Finally, most of what you eat is water. Watermelon, for example, is about 95% water. So if you've eaten 12 ounces of watermelon, you just consumed 10 ounces of water.
 
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I pee pee clear.
 
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