how much water can a person intake in one sitting before reaching death (hyponatremia)?

Question

as in the case with the fraternity hazing, only minus the exercise. Just too much water.

Answer 1

Assuming that the person is otherwise healthy (no medical problems, no kidney problems, no ADH regulation problems, etc):

Well, most people can pee about 15 liters or urine in a day. This is around 4 gallons!

So, it would HAVE to be much more than this to cause death by hyponatremia!

IF you drank much more over a VERY short period of time (several gallons in an hour), you would probably vomit some back up, too!

Furthermore, as you started to become hyponatremic, you would become nauseated, feel realy sick, get a bad headache, become confused, and lethargic...

This, in a sense, would save most people's lives...and prevent death. In other words, they would get too sick to continue to drink enough to die....even in fraternity hazing.

However, if someone was forced to drink enough water over a short enough period of time, they could theoretically drink enough to pass out, have seizures, go into a coma...and yes, even die.

It is hard (at least for me) to even put a rough guess at this number, as I believe every person would be quite a bit different...and the range of amount to death would likely be VERY variable, depending on weight of the person, etc. Furthermore, it would depend more on the RATE of water consumption than the actual AMOUNT.

Some would NOT be able to drink enough water to kill themselves. They would feel so awful, they would stop.

Most people that become hyponatremic from drinking "too much" water either have a physical disease (i.e. impaired ADH regulation, etc) and/or they have a psychiatric disease (i.e. pyshogenic polydypsia).

In psychiatric disease of drinking too much water, it is usually a chronic thing...not an acute thing (i.e. not a "in one sitting" situation).

However, if there were an underlying psychological or physiological problem to begin with, then the hazing thing could kill such a person.
-

Furthermore, most otherwise healthy people would not die from their "water drinking hazing" hyponatremia...they would pass out, maybe have a seizure, go into a coma. Then, 911 would be called, they'd be taken to the hospital...given medical care...and gradually come out of it with appropriate treatment.

So, I know you wanted an exact number...but I don't think this can be answered.

A better fraternity haze is to have people drink a gallon of whole milk in 30 minutes!

NO one can hold down a gallon of milk, if they drink it within 30 minutes....and projectile milk vomiting is quite a sight.