Frightening water poisoning

　　In the summer of 2004, a health newspaper in Dalian published an article saying that drinking too much water can cause poisoning, causing pulmonary edema and kidney failure, vomiting, Headache, edema and other serious symptoms. I happened to be familiar with the editor who wrote the article, so I called her. The following is our conversation:

　　My "Is the article about water poisoning written by you?"

She "Yes, is there any problem"

　　I "Do you think that excessive drinking water can be poisoned?"

　　She "is not right? Drinking too much water can not be poisoned?"< /p>

　　 I "can be poisoned, but it can only happen in one situation, that is, people fall into the reservoir and can’t swim!"

　　 Anything is too bad It is a dialectics that everyone can understand, "too much is too late" and "everything must be opposed". However, it is a bit dogmatic to talk too much about drinking water. Water poisoning refers to the total amount of water ingested by the body exceeds the amount of drainage, so that water is retained in the body, causing a decrease in blood osmotic pressure and an increase in circulating blood volume. Even in clinical work, water poisoning is a rare occurrence, mainly due to excessive secretion of antidiuretic hormone, renal insufficiency or excessive fluid replacement after surgery. Symptoms include fatigue, nausea and vomiting, even confusion, coma, etc. . It is extremely rare for healthy people to drink too much water until they are poisoned. If there is a human kidney, it has a strong regulating ability. After a healthy person drinks 1000 ml of water at a time, the urine volume will increase after about half an hour. At the end of the first hour, the urine volume reaches the highest value, and then the urine volume decreases, and returns to the original level after 2-3 hours. Therefore, unless you drink a lot of water in a short time (such as drowning), there is no need to worry about poisoning.

　　The Chinese Society of Nutrition recommends drinking 6 glasses of water (1200 ml) per day. Even if you drink more, your stomach capacity is limited. Except for frequent urination and polyuria, it will not be water-toxic. Of course, just like when we eat something and feel uncomfortable sometimes, drinking water, especially after drinking a lot of water, may sometimes feel uncomfortable, but this has nothing to do with water poisoning.

　　 In short, a healthy person drinks water and then drinks water, and finally drinking water is only theoretically existing, and in reality it does not happen. "Drinking too much water will poison the water" is not so much a dialectics as a scare.