Too much of a good thing

In this boiling summer sun, your focus is probably on staying cool and hydrated, but did you know that drinking too much can be dangerous, too?

Exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH) can affect athletes when they drink too much water, diluting the sodium in their blood and causing the cells to swell. Unfortunately, the early symptoms - dizziness, bloating, and nausea - are the same as those for dehydration, making the condition difficult to diagnose without measuring blood sodium levels. Left untreated, it can lead to headaches, seizures, coma, or death.

Research has been done on endurance athletes for years. But delegates at a recent exercise-associated hyponatremia conference called for more focus on the condition in traditional sports.

"We are seeing more instances in the football-player population and other community sports. It was a kind of an eye-opener for us," said Sandra Fowkes Godek, director of West Chester University's HEAT Institute (it stands for Heat Illness Evaluation Avoidance and Treatment). "It is important that we reach out to high school and college level sports."

Why do we overdrink?

Myths about dehydration and muscle cramps have led many worried athletes to drink beyond thirst. Football players are often encouraged to down lots of water and sports drinks in the misguided belief that it prevents or relieves muscle cramps. In fact, cramps are a sign of fatigue, not dehydration - and, sometimes, hyponatremia.

Many athletes also reach for sports drinks because they believe they are a good way to replace depleted sodium levels. But such drinks contain too little sodium to make a difference, Fowkes Godek said, and too many of these electrolyte drinks can lead to hyponatremia. Only a hypertonic saline solution has the right concentration of sodium to treat the condition, by drawing excess fluid out of cerebral tissue through osmosis.

So how do we prevent more tragedies like the death of Zyrees Oliver, the South Jersey-born Georgia teenager who died in August after drinking too much water and Gatorade at football practice?

Know your sweat rate, and listen to your thirst mechanism. Don't force fluids. Your body will tell you what it needs.