Posted on: September 12, 2007
Athletes: Don’t Overdo the Fluids
By CTW Features
Image courtesy iStock
With all the bottled water and sports drinks lining grocery shelves, you might think athletes really need all that fluid. They don’t.
Many athletes who run marathons, triathlons or do long-distance cycling tend to overhydrate, causing exercise-induced hyponatremia, a form of water poisoning that has been linked to deaths of marathon runners, according to experts at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Frequently, the public’s impression of the amount of water that is necessary to drink for good health is not based on factual data, says Dr. Joseph Verbalis, a professor and interim director at Georgetown University Medical Center. “Many in society have promoted this idea that you need to continually drink a large amount of fluid, such as 8 ounces of water, eight times a day. But most people don’t really need that much.”
One study showed that 13 percent of Boston marathon runners suffered from hyponatremia. Some people have gained a dangerous 6 to 7 pounds during a single marathon because their kidneys could not excrete all the unnecessary fluid.
“There’s a misconception among the sports community that consuming sports drinks rather than water will protect you from becoming hyponatremic,” Verbalis says. “That’s simply not true. Drinking too much of anything puts some people at risk from potentially dangerous levels of hyponatremia.”
So when should you take a drink? When you’re thirsty, Verbalis says.
