Athlete: Too much water is life threatening

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MunichIf you work up a sweat, you have to refuel. However, one should not drink pure water "over thirst" either: Too much of it can even be life-threatening in extreme cases. Sports physicians around James Winger from Loyola University are warning against this again. Her simple advice: only drink enough to quench your thirst.

The danger arises from a lack of sodium, as this is lost in large quantities when you sweat. If the athlete then drinks too much, the blood is thinned even more. Then there is a strong imbalance between the sodium content in the blood and that in the body's cells. Following the laws of physics, water flows from the vessels into the cells - they swell. Edema can be life-threatening, especially in the lungs and the brain, which cannot expand in the skull.

Drowsiness, dizziness, vomiting

"Exercise associated hyponatremia" (EAH) is what doctors call this critical condition, which is fatal over and over again. The signs include drowsiness, dizziness, vomiting, sometimes tremors and cramps, and swelling of the face, hands and feet. Weight gain during exercise is also suspect - it is caused by excess fluid.

Not only marathon runners, triathletes or football players sometimes develop EAH - even after long hikes or even yoga, which is considered so gentle, some athletes have a significant sodium deficiency.

Listen to the body

It can become critical if the athletes do not pay attention to the needs of their own body and drink more than it needs. This also applies to isotonic drinks, which contain electrolytes, but by no means the same concentration as is found in the blood.

The fear of dehydration, on the other hand, is mostly unfounded. “An athlete can lose up to three percent of his body weight due to the loss of fluids without his performance being impaired,” says sports medicine specialist Winger. Muscle cramps or heat stroke cannot be prevented with increased fluid intake: "You get a heat shock because you produce too much heat, not because you are dehydrated," says the expert.

A severe form of hyponatremia is life-threatening and must be treated with a doctor-controlled, gradual administration of saline infusions. (cf)

Source:

tement of the Third International Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia Consensus Development Conference, Carlsbad, California, 2015, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine: July 2015 - Volume 25 - Issue 4 - p 303-320 doi: 10.1097 / JSM.0000000000000221

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