Water

[rup]

Don't think I saw this on here.

About 1-2 months ago, there was a news story on a woman who 'overdosed' on water. As silly as this sounds, there was a contest involving drinking as much water as possible until you had to pee. This woman, as I recalled, downed a gallon+ in short order, supposedly washed-out her electolyte, went into renal failure, and died.

On this site, we typically hear of the effects of the opposite - not enough water. But the end points seem earily similar. Anyone ever hear if this person had some other condition that precipitated her problem??

 

[Papa Bear]

Don't think I saw this on here.

About 1-2 months ago, there was a news story on a woman who 'overdosed' on water. As silly as this sounds, there was a contest involving drinking as much water as possible until you had to pee. This woman, as I recalled, downed a gallon+ in short order, supposedly washed-out her electolyte, went into renal failure, and died.

On this site, we typically hear of the effects of the opposite - not enough water. But the end points seem earily similar. Anyone ever hear if this person had some other condition that precipitated her problem??

This condition, called Hyponatremia (Google search), is an occasional problem for marathon runners, particularly those taking 5+ hours to finish. There have been several deaths, at least one at Boston several years ago. The condition seemes to have moved from the obscure to the not-uncommon with the influx of a great number of runners in the last decade, moving the marathon event from a "hard core" sport to a "popular" sport.

The marathoners mantra used to be "drink as much as you can as often as you can". Now it's "drink enough but not too much". Most major marathons will now caution their entrants on this and stress taking of electrolyte drinks.

I'm not sure how this translates to hiking. I think loss of electrolytes will certainly make you "bonk", but I haven't heard hyponatremia raised as a hiking issue per se.

Edit: Sorry, it's hypo, not hyper which I first wrote.

 

[likeitsteep]

you don't need an additional condition for this to occur. it's called
hyponatremia and it's becoming more common. more and more people are pre-hydrating too much. like a lot of things, many think if some is good than a lot must be great. recently, in addition to the tragic case of the young woman, there was an instance when a police officer died in a similar manner. here's the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081001460.html

moderation is key like almost all things in life.

 

[Doc McPeak]

Hmm. I guess BEER must be full of electrolytes!

On a more serious note, I was told about this years ago, and recommended to drink a liter of gatorade to every liter of water while hiking.

 

[Papa Bear]

Hmm. I guess BEER must be full of electrolytes!

Sorry:

Severe water and electrolyte disturbances were observed in a patient after a bout of very heavy beer drinking (30 liters in 6 days). ... This particular cause of hyponatremia should be recognized, if only to avoid confusing the clinical signs of alcoholic intoxication with those due to water intoxication.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7447230&dopt=Abstract

So 30 liters in 6 days = 5 liters per day = just over 11 pints per day for almost a week. That doesn't seem like all that much to me. I hope he was on vacation.

 

[DougPaul]

I'm not sure how this translates to hiking. I think loss of electrolytes will certainly make you "bonk", but I haven't heard hyponatremia raised as a hiking issue per se.

I forget the exact details, but IIRC, bonking is one of the body's fueling mechanisms (liver glycogen?) running out of fuel. Traditionally hits at about 20 mi in a marathon.

Doug