Can you overdo it with the water? Well, yes you can, it is called water intoxification or hyponatremia (meaning 'low salt') and is where as you drink excessive amounts of water you dilute the salt content of your blood to a level which can eventually lead to organ problems. Athletes can also suffer (hence one of the reasons they may take salt tablets or use energy drinks to replace lost salt), because of the amount of salt they excrete in their sweat. The key word here though is 'excessive'. In a normal adult we are equipped to dispose of as much as 15 to 20 litres of water (31 to 42 pints) spaced over a day (Please note - I am definitely NOT suggesting you try to find this out for yourself!), and so even if you drank 8 pints of water over the course of a day you wouldn't even be coming close to what your body could deal with physically. The problems with hyponatremia comes generally not from people upping their water intake for health reasons; because most people drink closer to two pints of water or less a day then eight. But from people who misguidedly drink excessive amounts of water in short spaces of time. This was tragically what happened to 18 year old Leah Betts in the mid-nineties in the UK. She had taken an ecstasy (MDMA) tablet, but experienced a panic attack and having heard about heatstroke deaths from the press whilst on MDMA believed that she needed to drink water in order to help her situation. She then proceeded to drink nearly two gallons (7.57 litres or 16 pints) of water in one and a half hours, suffered symptoms of hyponatremia and two weeks later they were holding her funeral.

So drunk to excess even water can be deadly and some people do question the science behind the '8 glass a day' (4 pints) concept. But even ardent sceptics would agree that whilst you may go to the bathroom more often, it is not going to do you any halm, and that drunk at those levels you really can only do yourself good. In the book 'Your Body's Many Cries for Water' by Dr Fereydoon Batmanghelidj he goes even further then this and recommends drinking daily 1 ounce of water for every for every two pounds of body weight plus one and one half additional ounces of water for every ounce of beverage you consume containing caffeine, carbonation or alcohol. So for example assume a man of 14 stone (88.9 kg - 1 stone = 6.35kg). This would be 196 pounds (14 pounds = 1 stone). So this would be 98 ounces of water a day which is 6.125 pints. And this assumes no alcohol, caffeine or cans of coke! So frankly, if you changed your water intake to consume 4 pints of water a day you really don't need to worry that you are overdoing it. Eating or drinking an excessive amount of anything will harm you, but have an adequate amount of water and you will be greatly assisting your body in healing itself.

Copyright - Stuart Brown