The answer to this question is, believe it or not, Yes!
Hyponatremia is the scientific term to call the unknown condition of water intoxication, mostly seen in infants and athletes. With the excesive perspiration people lose, not only water, but also electrolytes.
The more water we drink, the more water accumulates in our organism; When the water enters our body's cells, our tissues suffer an innflamation, but with the excessive water, our serum (the outside of the cells) starts drowing sodium from the inside to the outside to re-stablish the water concentration necessary for the body.
The other way that our cells have to re-establish the balance of electrolytes in our body is by osmosis; Electrolytes are more concentrated in the inside of our cells, so our body tries to move across the water that posses that amount of electrolytes outside the cell to the the inside in order to balance the perfect concentration that our body needs.
If there is nothing our body can do, the cells can swell untill the point of rupture and this can provoque something similar to drowning; the lost of electrolytes and the swelling of the tissues permit the water enters to the lungs. The swelling puts pressure in the brain and the nerves, provoquing a coma and the death.
The only solution to this case is to administrate a saline dosis, but only if the swelling of the cells did not provoque too much damage.
This is a very uncommon condition, but where is the risk in drinking water, is it in drinking too much, or the amount of water we drink at once?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill
Interesting and really new topic for me, Miguel. Although I found it worth of further research, I could get the point "If there's nothing our body can do..." I couldn't not thought of any particular stimulus for the body cells not to react to, and therefore the osmosis process not to happen.
ReplyDeleteThe Osmosis process is simply the action performed by solvent molecules (substances that dissolves a solute) through a membrane to a higher solute concentration region in order to balance the chemicals the cell is exposed to. But there are not cases in which the cells are prevented from being affected by this process, right?
I had heard about it before. Actually a friend explained me the risks of drinking too much water some years ago when I constantly suffered headaches because of the excessive consumption of water; in this case the same principle operates since the brain contracts because of the lack of electrolytes, provoking headaches (according to what he told me).
ReplyDeleteI also watched an episode of "1000 ways to die," in which an athlete died because she was obsessed with drinking water.
Anyway, loved your topic! :)