How much water should I drink?

Electrolytes like sodium, potassium, chloride, and magnesium are electrically charged minerals that are found in body fluids (like blood and urine) and are important for balancing the water in your body. They are also essential for the proper functioning of nerves, muscles, brain and heart.

When you become dehydrated, the concentration of electrolytes in your blood rises and the body signals the release of the hormone vasopressin, which ultimately reduces the amount of water released in the urine so that you can reabsorb it back into your body and get it. balance in check, said Dr. Hyndman.

Unless you are in an unusual situation – exercising very strenuously in the heat or losing a lot of fluids through vomiting or diarrhea – you don’t need to replenish electrolytes with sports drinks. or other products that contain it. Most people get enough electrolytes from food, Dr. Hew-Butler said.

But drinking more water, even when I’m not thirsty, will improve my health, right?

No. Of course, people with certain conditions, like kidney stones or the rarer autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, may benefit from an effort to drink a little more water than their thirst would tell them, Dr. Topf.

But in reality, most healthy people who blame sickness for being dehydrated may actually feel bad because they drink. too much water, speculated Dr. Hyndman. “Maybe they’ll have a headache or feel bad, they’ll think, ‘Oh, I’m dehydrated, I need to drink more,’ and they keep drinking more and more. water, and they keep feeling worse and worse and worse and worse.

If you drink at a faster rate than your kidneys can excrete, the electrolytes in your blood may become too diluted, and in milder cases, you may feel “sick”. In the most extreme case, drinking an excessive amount of water in a short period of time could lead to a condition called hyponatremia, or “water poisoning”. “It’s very scary and bad,” Dr. Hyndman said. If the sodium levels in your blood get too low, it can cause brain swelling and neurological problems like seizures, coma, or even death.

In 2007, a 28-year-old woman died of hyponatremia after drinking nearly two gallons of water in three hours while participating in a radio station’s “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest, which featured the participants in the challenge to drink water and then go as long as possible without urinating. In 2014, a 17-year-old high school football player in Georgia died of the illness after apparently drinking two gallons of water and two gallons of Gatorade.