"Water intoxication: A potentially life-threatening condition caused by drinking too much water, which leads to hyponatremia and may result in seizures, coma, and death." (from Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine)

"Water intoxication: an increase in the volume of free water in the body, resulting in dilutional hyponatremia. Common causes are excessive ingestion of water, increased infusions of hypotonic IV solutions, or excess secretions of antidiuretic hormone. Clinical manifestations are abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, lethargy, and dizziness. It can potentially lead to convulsions and coma." (from Mosby's Medical Dictionary)

They call it "water" intoxication, but does this really mean an excess of ANY water-based liquid? Chicken soup? Orange juice? GatorAde?

I must not be asking Mr. Google the right question.

Sue

Sue

teh google search tips

water intoxication site:.edu
water intoxication site:.gov
water intoxication site:webmd.com

usually i find it easier to look it up in encyclopedia
and then follow up on the references

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

basically, liters of water, without electrolytes , bad for you

if its got flavor, its usually chock full of electrolytes

on a related note,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy

Theoretically, I imagine that someone could drink enough, say, decaf coffee to trigger hyponatremia (I only say "decaf" to exclude any effect of caffeine--some Brit did actually kill himself by OD'ing on caffeine just the other day). But plain water would be the easiest to cause this problem since it contains little in the way of electrolytes. I think Gatorade would not because it contains too much of various electrolytes, such as sodium. If you didn't get nauseous and throw up from trying to overdose on Gatorade, then I think you'd actually be facing hy-PER-natremia, rather than hy-PO-natremia.

Some casual runners in marathons have a tendency to fall victim to hyponatremia because they drink too much water during the race because they've always heard to drink often and drink a lot. Over the course of 5+ hours on the course, they can drink much more plain water than they are sweating out. But the common wisdom in sports hydration has become more refined over the years. If you watch elite marathoners, they drink very little during the race even though they are working very, very hard.

We drink 50/50 Gatorade and water on summer hikes precisely to avoid getting sick. A hard-learned lesson as early on in our Shenandoah hiking adventures a friend and I each drank a gallon of water on a steep 9-mile hike on a 90-degree humid day.

We were sweating so much we didn't pee any of that water out.

Afterward, she was quite nauseous and had a severe headache. I was fine but we learned about hyponatremia and, as I noted, ever since we go 50/50 on pure water and Gatorade.

We also carry a salty snack.

NO. If you're getting sodium with it you should be OK. Yes, you can get hyPERnatremic if you lose more water than you replace, but you get hyPOnatremic if you drink free water (ie, no electrolytes).

Personally, I don't condone watering down sports beverages. After all, they ARE designed to replace electrolytes.

Sucks how head exhaustion sounds an awful lot like hyponatremia, huh?

Actually, I understand Gatorade has a bit too much sugar for optimum water absorption from the digestive tract (article in Runner's World many moons ago). There was then a replacement drink called ERG, about half the concentration of Gatorade. I got nauseated drinking Gatorade in competition, but not with Erg. I often cut my Gatorade in half when hiking and it works just fine.

you wouldn't be diagnosed with hyponatremia for drinking too much of anything else like coffee mentioned above. It is specific to too much water replacement and not enough sodium replacement. This is a condition whose median is age group endurance athletes, typically marathoners. Furthermore it is predominantly a lower weight female condition. Because men weigh more it is more difficult for them to reach the condition.

Though this is a condition that can be fatal, it is rare. The media has like much else sensationalized it for their purpose. Furthermore it is a race day problem that can be easily controlled by simple steps like using a sport drink, gel or electrolyte replacement pill.

Hikers, who populate this forum more than endurance athletes, should have no problem with this whatsoever. Our meals are overly salted. I might guess as little as a couple cheeks of beef jerky is enough for a day of our movement to stave this off. Though I use electrolyte replacement pills (I use Endurolytes by Hammer)in my endurance training and hiking.

Same here. I thought that formula was similar to oral rehydration salts mixture.

Has anyone here carried the Gatorade single Qt powder packets, 8 for $5 at W-M. I an thinking about using one of my Nalgenes to hold 1 Qt. and the other to hold some packets, but I want to know how many, and if the packets are durable. P.M. me to prevent thread hijacking...

What I do is buy gatorade powder in the little orange canisters and then fill either water bottles or smaller containers with the powder as I need it. I haven't seen those 1 qt packets in a while; I am not sure they are durable enough to ride around in a pack for a long time....