Wee for a Wii

Strange but True: Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill

This article talks about a 28-year-old woman in a water-drinking contest in order to win a Wii. She drank 6 liters of water in the time span of 3 hours and died after going home due to "water intoxication". Over-drinking of water causes hyponatremia, or dilution of the blood, which results from drinking too much water. It is when the sodium concentration of the blood drops to below 135 millimoles per liter, or 0.4 ounces per gallon. Severe hyponatremia can can cause nausea, fatigue, headaches, and mental disorientation.

The kidneys control the amounts of water and solutes that are retained in the body or leave the body. When too much water is consumed in a short period of time, the kidneys are incapable of flushing all of it out, and so the blood becomes waterlogged, or saturated with water. The water is drawn to areas where solute concentrations are higher, so it leaves the blood and enters the cells. Most cells have room to stretch and accommodate the water, as they are embedded in tissues such as muscle and fat. However, nuerons do not have this kind of room to stretch. Brain cells are tightly packed in the skull and cannot expand to accommodate the excess water. So, severe hyponatremia that occurs in a short amount of time can lead to detrimental brain swelling that can result in severe medical conditions including seizures, coma, respiratory arrest, herniation of the brain stem (click here to find out when brain stem herniation is), and death.

In the majority of cases, water poisoning occurs due to a combination of excessive water drinking and an increase in the production of antidiuretic hormone (ADH). This hormone instructs the kidneys to retain more water in the body. More of this hormone is secreted at times of physical stress, such as when running a marathon, despite the consumption of extra water to compensate for water loss.