is water bad for you if you drink alot?

Question

I was having dinner with a few family friends, and i was telling them about this fasting ameditation i did for my taekwondo. We have to do this to get a black belt. Anyways, i told them that i drank about 15 bottles of water per day, without having any food inside my stomach for 3 days. 15 bottels turns out to be about 16.9*15=253.5 fl. oz. they told me this is bad, and i didnt really catch the explination. If this is true, why is this bad? I always thought drinking as much of water as possible is good. Everyday i drink only water, occasionaly orange juice and eat alot of fruits/vegetables/healthy/organic stuff. So is drinking alot of water bad with an empty stomach? with a full stomach?

Answer 1

It depends on the person how much water is considered too much. If you've heard on the news recently, a woman participated in a contest on a radio station, called "hold your wee for a wii". She consumed over 2 gallons of water in a short period of time, and was not allowed to urinate if she wanted to win this contest. Several hours after the contest ended, she was found dead in her home from water intoxication.

And this isn't the first time I've ever heard of such a case. I was in the army, and while in boot camp we do a 12 mile road march. One soldier died after this march because the Drill Sergeant thought he was dehydrated (some of the symptons of dehydration are similiar to overhydration), and encouraged him to keep drinking more and more water. Eventually he collapsed and was taken to the hospital where he died.

The problem is when you're drinking such a large amount of water, your diluting the sodium and electrolytes in your system, and then not taking in any more to make up for the loss. This can deliver quite a shock to your system. How you're fasting and drinking such a large amount of water for days at a time can actually harm you if you're not careful. It's better if you fast with something like Gatorade, as this will replenish the sodium and electrolytes in your system that you'd otherwise lose with just water.

Answer 2

Believe it or not, there is a condition called water intoxication. This is where electrolytes are literally pushed out of your cells by water, and the pressure inside the cell caused by this water can rupture and kill the cell, causing many symptoms, the worst of which involves the brain and central nervous system. This is most common in marathon runners that only drink water, and infants that are fed diluted infant formula. According to this article, your body should be able to process 15 liters of water per day, so you are on the edge. A better suggestion would be to alternate Gatorade or Powerade to balance out electrolytes. Hope this helps!

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

ps To figure in how much food affects it, think about the amount of water in the food. Bread wouldn't affect it at all, but soup would be about equal in volume as water.

Answer 3

I have heard an International News that a women died drinking excess water while participating in a game of drinking water.

I don't know in which country.

Generally 4-6 litres of water per day is very good to human beings.

Answer 4

WATER IS ALWAYS GOOD! you seem to be REALLY healthy so no worries but you should eat before you drink water so you won't get full since most likely you'll get full with all that water you drink

Answer 5

Anything done in excess is always bad...that's a fact of life. Drinking too much water is dangerous for people with kidney and/or cardiac problems. In fact, people with hypertension are advised to limit their salt and fluid intake. Also, too much water can disturb the electrolyte equilibrium in your body. I advise you not to do it. Don't test the limits of your body by overhydrating yourself.

Answer 6

no, but u gotta pee when u need to. but try to keep everything balance.