Drinking Too Much Water Can Be Toxic?

Hi! :) Drinking too much water can cause a state of the body called "Hypervolemia" wherein there's too much water...well, in the body. The blood has some minerals and their concentration might be less than normal because they are being diluted even more by the excess fluids (as said earlier, an example would be HypoNatremia, meaning less than normal amount of sodium). Also, too much water may cause high blood pressure as the heart pumps more fluid throughout the circulatory system than what the blood vessels can usually tolerate. Much worse, it may cause too much fluid that there will be some in the lungs causing what is called "Pulmonary Edema". It is worse because the most important basic need of man is oxygen and a person with that condition is taking in less. Sorry if this posts contains some medical terms, I hope I explained that right.

oh! that's the only i heard that drinking too much water can be harmful in the body. my always resort when i got sick is drinking a lot of water and it really does me good. i go for water therapy whenever i suffer from my urinary tract infection or even colds. i think what happen to your friend is not really caused by drinking too much, it may be from tension of joining that contest lol! hope your friend will be fine soon.

anything that is too much is not good for the health. sometimes, it can even be deadly. our body can only take some amounts and cannot take everything that we wanna drink or eat. drinking so much water in a day can be good but drinking gallons and gallons of it in a contest is not really a good idea. i think your friend's having problems with his stomach right now. but he'll be fine after he has drained all the excess water he has taken in.

i think too much of anything is harmful. may be too much water has caused to wash out the enzymes to be washed away. also it can take away many useful materials from body.

Yes that is really true. I have read that too much water would eventually drown your body down and would also toxify you body in the long run. I have read from wikipedia this is called hyponatremia, where there is substantial amount of water is introduced in your body than can it be removed then an imbalance happens inside your body thus having problems althogether. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication Try this link to better explain things to you.

Hi All As all we know that anything excess is BAD. In the same way drinking too much water is bad for health .But frankly speaking i dont have idea why drinking too much water is bad , so if any body is having idea of whats wrong please describe ...

I believe - 'Excess of everything is bad", as it happend with your friends. Our body cannot consume water, at a given point of time, more than a limit and your friend appear to have crossed that limit to complete and so he paid the price for crossing the limits. Hope he would recover soon. Our best wishes are with him.

I think it depends how you drink it and how much you drink it. I think it's still hard to believe that drinking too much water can be toxic. If you really drink a lot of water in a second, it may be harmful. I am so sorry to your friend and I hope your friend will recover soon. I love China

Yes I have heard of this although it sounds quite counter intuitive. i guess with our bodies the rule is everything in moderation. too much of a good thing always becomes a bad thing. for myself i still think I'm not inbibing enough fluids. probably only half the required 8 glasses of water a day. our body has a delicate balance and we need to maintain that! cheerio.

Drinking or eating too much of anything can be toxic. That's what 'too much' means, really.

Well a person's stomache is only so big and therefore can hold only a limited amount of anything. Just imagine over-filling a balloon with water. The water isn't bad for the ballon, but too much is going to put too much pressure on it and make it explode! POP!

its really very sad just coz of a competition he lost his life, this is the first time i heard of that drinking too much water may effect human life but i m having a feeling that might be the water he drank is contaminated n was unhealthy or what? if excess intake of water causes human damage i think this kind of competitions should be banned, dont u think so?

Ok, this is just silly. The "water" did not make you buddy sick, it was obviously something in the water. You do not get sick by drinking something you need to stay alive. That would be like saying breating too much air will make you sick. And don't believe everything you read on wikipedia...anyone can post that information!

If you drink too much water then it will dilute the sodium in your body causing a condition known as water intoxication. When too much water enters the body's cells the tissues swell up with excess fluid. And in order to re-establish the tissues sodium is drawn out. For more information visit http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

yeah i had read in the news months back and some discussion posted also here about drinking too much of it will cause intoxication....i guess too much of everything we eat/drink is dangerous to our health..i guess the key word would be "moderation" in everything and also on what we do..

TOo much water dilutes your electrolytes and other minerals that help electrical and chemical messages between cells. This means misfirings and whacked communication in your body. Look up hyponatremia. At a more severe extent, it can cause your brain to swell. I've drank too much water before and began to feel dizzy and faint.

I guess there is a "medium" to anything. I do know water helps flush the toxins from the body but I guess you can have too much of a good thing. I had heard of that before in someone that was trying to lose weight and he drank so much water and he passed away. So I guess we all cannot overdo any good thing. God bless you!

slepart hi the reason why drinking too much water can be toxic is that all that water washed all the sodium and other chemicals from his body upsetting the normal blood gases and almost killing a person. too much of any food or drink can be toxic so we should use common sense in eating and drinking. 8 to 10 glasses of water is all we need as a lot of our foods contain water. a happy medium is all we need to be healthy,neither too little food and drink nor too much food and drink. just balance things and you stay healthy.

Too much of anything usually leads to problems, even with healthy things like fruit and vegetables. I hope your friend is okay!

i dont think so. drinking water is good to our body to detox our system. what kind of water did your friend drink? thats impossible. the even advice people to drink water early in the morning cause its good to clean our system.