In Rare Cases, Drinking Too Much Water is Dangerous
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...too.html?cat=5



Most experts encourage us to drink plenty of water. We've all heard the eight-glasses-per-day rule,

and we've seen fitness enthusiasts who carry gallon jugs of water to the gym! Marathon runners and other endurance
athletes are regularly reminded about the importance of hydration.

But recently, a new development is occurring among long distance athletes: They can "die" from hyponatremia - or low sodium concentrations in the blood - as a result of drinking too much water. Essentially, the huge quantities of water that these athletes are drinking are diluting their blood to the point of dangerously low quantities of sodium

I fell upon this problem literally as a young boy. In the 7th grade I went out for football. The two a day practices that took place before school started were always the worst. 90 degrees and often very high humidity. They always kept forcing water down us so we wouldn't dehydrate. During a blocking drill one afternoon I hit the young man across from me and he buckled like a sack of potatoes or something. It took a few seconds to realize that I had not done that great of a job blocking but something was wrong with him. He was just laying there in a pile. Well to make a long story short, his doctor found that due to all the water he was drinking he had low sodium concentrations in his blood. He was sick for quite a while after that and never did return to play football.