THERE'S A REASON WE DON'T HAVE HUMPS:

Runners' lore doesn't hold water: High intake of fluids can be deadly during exercise, doctors warn (Gina Kolata, April 14, 2005, NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)

After years of telling athletes to drink as much liquid as possible to avoid dehydration, some doctors are now saying that drinking too much during intense exercise poses a far greater health risk.

An increasing number of athletes – marathon runners, triathletes and even hikers – are severely diluting their blood by drinking too much water or too many sports drinks, with some falling gravely ill and even dying, the doctors say.

New research on runners in the Boston Marathon confirms the problem and shows just how serious it is.

The research, reported today in The New England Journal of Medicine, involved 488 runners who participated in the 2002 Boston Marathon. The runners gave blood samples before and after the race. While most were fine, 13 percent – or 62 of them – drank so much that they had hyponatremia, or abnormally low blood sodium levels. Three had levels so low that they were in danger of dying.

The runners who developed the problem tended to be slower, taking more than four hours to finish the course. That gave them plenty of time to drink copious amounts of liquid. And drink they did – an average of three liters, or about 13 cups of water or a sports drink – so much that they actually gained weight during the race.

All things in moderation--not least exercise.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 14, 2005 6:26 AM