Too much water???

NewFrockTuesday

I drink roughly 4 - 6ltr of water per day. is this too much. i always seem to be thirsty, but i thnk this has more to do with talking alot than anything else. i know the rda is about 2 ltr, but there is no way i could ration myself to that.

tk123

If you're worried abt it go to the docs and get some (blood) tests done. I drink LOADS cos of my dodge thyroid and when I was in hospital a while ago they kept taking my blood sugar to make sure i wasn't a diabetic!!

dudara

Unless you have diabetes, I don't think its anything to worry about. You might ask yourself if you have a high salt content diet. Me, I drink between 3-4 litres easily.

If you're really worried, head to your doctor.

Vexorg

If you are very thirsty, dry mouth, dry elbows, peeing a lot, loss of appetite and generally tired, you could be diabetic. Its worth having a chat with your doctor as thirsty all day every day is not really normal.

I had all the above symptons and ignored them, ended up in hospital for 2 weeks with severe diabetic ketoacidosis and came out having to take a lot of insulin 120mg+ daily and 4 to 6 injections a day depending on what I ate. I was diagnosed as a type 1 - its appears to have been a mis diagnosis as after a realitively small lifestyle change Im in my third month of no insulin, but thats another story.

Get it checked out, even if you are insulin resistant, a diet change and exercise can control your glucose levels. Let the Doc find out for you.

JoeKelly

purdee wrote:

I drink roughly 4 - 6ltr of water per day. is this too much. i always seem to be thirsty, but i thnk this has more to do with talking alot than anything else. i know the rda is about 2 ltr, but there is no way i could ration myself to that.

4 to 6 litres is alot of water and could be dangerous to your health! Because of such a high consumtion of water and regular toilet trips chances are your depleting your sodium and possibly your phosphurus levels id advise you to speak to your doctor and see what he says!

DrIndy

JoeKelly wrote:

4 to 6 litres is alot of water and could be dangerous to your health! Because of such a high consumtion of water and regular toilet trips chances are your depleting your sodium and possibly your phosphurus levels id advise you to speak to your doctor and see what he says!

Not quite true - healthy kidneys can cope with an enormous amount of water, around 100L per day if needed..... in fact, your kidneys can process water faster than it is possible to consume it.....

4-6 litres as an absolute value is not enormous either, just think about when you are out on the beer and people regularily drink that much and the only real net effect is a sore head the next day.

Thirst + lots of water + regularily to the toilet may be significant. It may be diabetes or a number of other things or it may not be significant. Either way, you will receive immediate reassurance by a trip to the GP and getting a few blood tests done. As the other posters recommend.......

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

JoeKelly

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

You reckon?

Roy Was Right

Saw this in newspaper - heard a similar story before as well.


'Aquaholics' warned not to drink themselves to watery grave

17 May 2005
'Aquaholics' were warned yesterday that drinking too much water can lead to convulsions, coma, and even death.

A London hospital recently treated a 23-year-old man who had slipped into a coma following a drastic detox diet which caused his brain to swell.

The patient was found to be suffering from hyponatraemia, or water intoxication, in which levels of sodium in the blood became dangerously diluted.

The fruit and vegetables he was eating did not contain enough sodium to counter the loss of minerals.

Irish people drink 120 million litres of bottled water a year. Young women are particularly likely to knock back litres of water, having been told by magazines and health gurus that it is a cure-all and washes out harmful toxins.

Irish Heart Foundation dietician Janice Morrissey said water consumption was a common sense issue.

The body requires a certain amount of water and if someone consumes more than that, it is excreted through the kidneys. "If you greatly increase the volume of water you take in you could lose sodium and other minerals as they are washed out with the excess fluid."

She said the heart foundation did not condone anyone taking up a fad diet and either cutting out one food group or radically increasing another.

"Scientific evidence, backed by the Department of Health, shows that a balanced diet is key to a healthy weight. If people want steady weight loss they must make changes to their lifestyle they can keep up for life.

"Yo-yo dieting does more harm than good, as you are likely to put on more weight after you come off the diet than you lost in the first place."

Superquinn dietician Paula Mee said: "In any long term diet you embark on you are likely to miss out on essential nutrients if you are not careful."

She believed that drinking between one and a half to two litres of water a day was ideal. A pint of that liquid could be milk, she said, if there were no other dairy products in the diet to provide calcium.

She warned that the elderly and young children were at particular risk of not drinking enough.

Meanwhile, a new study in the journal of the American College of Nutrition has refuted the belief that tea and coffee should not be included in a person's calculation of liquid intake due to caffeine's diuretic effect.

The study found coffee drinkers had the same levels of hydration as those who stuck to water.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.