The FastDay Forum

Has this already been posted?

I have just been reading about someone drinking 5 litres of water a day and thought I should put a warning about drinking too much water.

Firstly Wikipedia on Water intoxication

A report from the Daily Mirror about a death from drinking too much water. It's the first article I came across. There are load out there. Water diet death: Jacqueline Henson's sister Pauline hits out at LighterLife

Take it easy and don't drink too much.

Pale yellow urine is good. If your urine is clear then you are probably drinking too much

Leah Betts who was the first high profile "Ecstasy death" actually died of drinking too much water rather than the pill itself

I have sometimes wondered if Dr M is aware how many people currently obsess over water consumption when he said to drink lots on a fast day. I've seen on other sites people aiming to drink 2+ litres not including tea and coffee, and thats on a normal diet. A lot of people are concerned that they aren't drinking enough and their health is somehow not as good as it should be because of it. And feel guilty about it. Most people are going to be fine being guided by thirst.

I remember being shown a video about Leah Betts in school. Only recently came across her case again recently and I felt angry that we had been lied to over the events. Drugs are bad m'kay, so don't do drugs m'kay... They didn't have to lie and make stuff up to argue against them.

[carorees]

Hi Peter

Thanks for posting this. I think it is a subject that needs to be raised.

Hope you don't mind that I've edited your title slightly as my first thought that you were talking about alcohol, so I just tweaked it to make it clearer and it might grab more people's attention!

I drink lots of water on a daily basis (6 - 13 litres) and it has been investigated over the years by medical professionals in many countries with no cause found and no long term side effects. However, I agree that this is NOT normal and as the OP says, the colour of your urine is a good indicator.

Wow, Navwoman, that's a huge amount! You must be swimming in the stuff!!

Thanks for the post... I tend to drink lots on fast days (although I'm really not sure how much that actually is)and then the recommended 2 litres on other days...

So are we saying that 5 litres daily is too much?

[janeg]

Feel quite strongly that the need for fluid has to take into account where in the world you are and what you're doing. Wide generalisations are not really helpful!
If you're hot and not sweating, no matter how much you've drunk - you need more.

So are we saying that 5 litres daily is too much?

I must confess I was surprised, 5 litres seems a lot to me, I don't know the answer. I think it depends on the individual. I'll be interested to see what others do.

My intake varies between 1 and 2 litres on fast days. I am sure it will go up a bit in the summer.

The warning is clear - if you take the 5 litres in one go you may be asking for trouble.

What does everyone think?

I think probably an important point is to spread out your drinking, and not drink too much in the same hour or two. A lot of the people who have died/got ill seem to have drunk x litres in an hour, or two hours, rather than spreading it throughout the day. And making sure you have enough electrolytes, especially if you are exercising.

I drink more than 5 litres per day, every day. I love ice cold water and I'm more or less always thirsty (always have been...it's not diabetes!)

I'm a registered nurse and have actually discussed this with multiple doctors and my instructors, etc. and the impression that I have gotten is that it's dangerous to drastically start to drink loads of water because your body is not accustomed and it can mess with your electrolytes. For a person like me, who always drinks this much, it causes no problems.

I have a pounding headache by 10 am if I haven't had a litre of water so I guess that's my body saying it's used to it and it wants it

The recommendation from the NHS ad the like is for about 1.2-1.5l on top of food. But there is this whole 8 glasses/2l a day thing that hasn't got a basis in science (read somewhere that it was tracked down to some glossy mag in the 70's). But again trying to put a generic quantity on everyone is silly too. Too many variables like size, activity, enviroment temperature.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... er-per-day

Interesting articles!
I can only manage 1-1.5L on normal days but my OH drinks at least 4L! But neither of us have had any problems due to it. Everyone's different

A couple of other things to bear in mind:
* A diet heavy in fruit and vegetables provides a lot of liquid, so less drinking water is required.
* Urine colour is affected by other things than just the amount of water it contains - for example, taking a high-dose Vitamin C tablet will make your urine a much deeper yellow, no matter how much liquid you do/don't drink.

But this is a very worthwhile subject to raise (so thank you, dohpeterchina) as (some of us) in the Western world seem to have damaged/disrupted our ability to recognise how much liquid we need to drink, in the same way that (some of us) have damaged/disrupted our ability to recognise how much food we need to eat.

On the days that I work (8 hours on T-W-Th-F) I drink two 16oz mugs (basically 1L total)in the morning-one coffee and one green tea. Then while at work I drink two 50oz (@1.5L) bottles of water and sometimes either a cup of tea or bouillon. Then when I get home I drink another two 16oz mugs (1L total)of tea. So 5L of fluids.

No problems.

On my off days, I have no idea, but it is a lot less as I rarely do both of the 50oz bottles and often don't even finish the one. But I drink more tea then too.