# How much water is too much?



## NextTimeAround (Dec 15, 2011)

I'm following diet tips online and drinking water whenever I think I might be hungry.

I've lost 9 pounds since February I'm so happy.

But now my husband says that you can overwork your kidneys even with water. (His father died of kidney failure.)

Is there any truth too that?


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

This is what he is referring to:



> Kidney Function
> 
> Your kidneys play a vital role in keeping your body balanced and healthy. The kidneys filter waste products and excess water out of your blood, which are then expelled in urine. If your kidneys don't function properly, waste products can build up in your blood. Blood requires a certain amount of salt -- at least 0.4 ounces per gallon, explains "Scientific American." If you drink too much water too quickly, the blood becomes diluted and the kidneys cannot filter it fast enough to maintain the proper sodium balance. This condition is called hyponatremia and causes symptoms including fatigue, nausea, vomiting and frequent urination. Seek emergency medical attention if you experience these symptoms after drinking a large volume of liquid.


Some people have died from this during competitions.


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

> Brain Swelling
> 
> While drinking too much water is hard on your kidneys, one of the biggest dangers is to your brain. Drinking more water than your kidneys can process means that water is soaked up by other cells in your body. Most cells are able to stretch to accommodate the extra water, but brain cells aren't as forgiving because they're packed tightly in your skull along with blood and cerebrospinal fluid, explains Wolfgang Liedtke, a Duke University Medical Center neuroscientist, in an article for "Scientific American." If your brain cells swell with too much water, you may experience seizures, respiratory problems, coma or even death.
> How Much Water
> ...


Can Drinking Too Much Water Hurt Your Kidneys? | LIVESTRONG.COM


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## Bibi1031 (Sep 14, 2015)

Well, anything done in excess is harmful, why wouldn't drinking too much water not be.

It is best to read how much is too much and don't over do it.IMO


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## Jessica38 (Feb 28, 2017)

It depends on which expert you listen to. Some will say it is extremely rare to over-hydrate, and that it's important to drink before feeling thirsty.

Others- endocrinologist Dr. Ray Peat is one I follow- say that drinking too much water upsets the balance of sodium/potassium in the body, interfering with proper thyroid function. I tend to follow Dr. Peat's advice because I've learned that thyroid function controls literally every process in the body, including hormone production and digestion, metabolism, etc...He's not an enjoyable read though. His work talks a lot about preventing hypothyroidism, which ages the body.

Water: swelling, tension, pain, fatigue, aging

"When people force themselves to drink a certain amount of water every day, even when they don't feel thirsty, they are activating complex adaptive processes unnecessarily. Thirst is the best guide to the amount of fluid needed.

When extra water consumption is combined with a low salt diet--as physicians have so often recommended--a healthy person can adapt easily, but for a hypothyroid person it can have disastrous effects. "


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

The major problem is drugs or other things that make you consume too much water so that it becomes toxic. There have been a few deaths round here due to water craving from drugs like Ecstacy. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

This however is extremely rare. I have seen many cases of dehydration but have never seen an issue with too much water consumption. So in my experience as a climber/ backpacker is that more water is safer. Most first aid classes, wilderness first aid and responder courses now teach drink when thirsty until urine is clear. There is a limit to what you can absorb and if you are peeing clear and frequent you've had enough and are wasting water. 

It's also important to drink enough water to maintain body temperature especially during cold weather. The risk of hypothermia can be reduced by being well hydrated.

All this being said ther is a limit to what the kidneys can handle. But it is much greater than the normal consumption range of a couple of liters per day that most people drink. In other words unless you exceed 8x8 a factor of 10 you are not at risk unless you have kidney problems already.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908954/


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## Vinnydee (Jan 4, 2016)

You can actually die from drinking too much water. I lost 45 lbs. since July because I was diagnosed with Diabetes. That weight loss did the trick and now I in the prediabetes group but barely. I just drank water as needed and tried to hit the 8 glasses a day recommendation for a normal healthy body. The problem is that the more I drink, the more often I have to pee. That is not good when you have a long drive somewhere or want to sleep uninterrupted.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*A good diet plan along with a regimen of exercise and acceptable water intake, prescribed by your MD is the best thing that you could hope for!

Please discuss this with your doctor immediately for your own well being!*


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## meal5 (May 10, 2017)

Your kidneys can eliminate about 5.3–7.4 gallons (20–28 liters) of water a day, but they can't get rid of more than 27–33 ounces (0.8–1.0 liters) per hour (14, 15). Therefore, in order to avoid hyponatremia symptoms, you should not drink more than 27–33 ounces (0.8–1.0 liters) of water per hour, on average (14).


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## FeministInPink (Sep 13, 2012)

meal5 said:


> Your kidneys can eliminate about 5.3–7.4 gallons (20–28 liters) of water a day, but they can't get rid of more than 27–33 ounces (0.8–1.0 liters) per hour (14, 15). Therefore, in order to avoid hyponatremia symptoms, you should not drink more than 27–33 ounces (0.8–1.0 liters) of water per hour, on average (14).


And that's still a LOT of water!


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## FeministInPink (Sep 13, 2012)

Vinnydee said:


> You can actually die from drinking too much water. I lost 45 lbs. since July because I was diagnosed with Diabetes. That weight loss did the trick and now I in the prediabetes group but barely. I just drank water as needed and tried to hit the 8 glasses a day recommendation for a normal healthy body. The problem is that the more I drink, the more often I have to pee. That is not good when you have a long drive somewhere or want to sleep uninterrupted.


I read somewhere--and I wish I could remember where, because I would cite it--that if a person is properly hydrated, they should be eliminating every 1.5-2 hrs.


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## BetrayedDad (Aug 8, 2013)

NextTimeAround said:


> I'm following diet tips online and drinking water whenever I think I might be hungry.
> 
> I've lost 9 pounds since February I'm so happy.


That's awesome, congrats! I use the same technique when I'm dieting.



NextTimeAround said:


> But now my husband says that you can overwork your kidneys even with water. (His father died of kidney failure.)
> 
> Is there any truth too that?


Unless you're drinking more than a gallon of water a day, I'd tell your hubby to chill out.


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## nealstory (Mar 3, 2018)

Hi there, I believe that 4-5L per day is sufficient.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

i have run ultramarathons in extreme heat, rucked with heavy equipment in extreme heat for extended periods(over 24 hours straight) and worked long hours in extreme heat. by extreme heat, i mean above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 

i have also seen a LOT of people go down from heat stroke and hyponatremia. i have never suffered heat stroke, but i did suffer hyponatremia in basic training. we were basically force hydrated all the damn time. after myself and a couple other people went into hyponatremic shock, they stopped forcing us to drink canteen after canteen of water. at the time, i was drinking so much water that i was CONSTANTLY having to pee. i was miserable all the time because my bladder constantly hurt because it was always full. while that was a miserable experience, none of us suffered any incidents from it until we did prolonged exercises. as far as i can tell, the danger arises when you are flushing your system with too much water while also exercising long enough to sweat out a whole lot of salt. for us, it didn't happen until we had sweated so much that we all had so much dried salt on our faces that it looked like frost. 

if you are not doing the above, you probably wont have any issues, even if you are drinking more water than you need.


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