Hydration is essential to maintain good health. It is a phrase that we hear very often, and it is totally true. Dehydration can be fatal for the person who suffers from it. But what if it was totally the other way around?
The ingestion of an excess of water is called hyponatremia and, although it is not very frequent, it is very dangerous for health, especially because the person is not aware that he is exceeding himself.
Easily mistaken for dehydration
One of the biggest dangers of hyponatremia is that it is very easily mistaken for dehydration, because the symptoms are very similar between them.
Hyponatremia causes confusion, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, headache, irritability, loss of appetite, cramps, muscle weakness, seizures, and / or hallucinations. Many of these symptoms coincide with those of dehydration so they can be confused, causing the person to drink more water further aggravating the situation and increasing the risk of going into a coma.
You drink too much without realizing it
Drinking water is not bad, in fact it has always been tried to educate society that drinking water is essential for good health, but it is not often said that drinking large amounts of water can be very harmful to health.
Therefore, you usually drink water without thinking about the consequences of drinking excessively, you simply consider that you are drinking water, therefore, you are having a healthy behavior. You don’t have to stop drinking water but you have to set a limit on water intake.
No information
There are usually no cases of hyponatremia, since it is not a very common pathology, but it does exist. The problem arises that, being rare, very few people are aware that if they drink excessively they can put their health at risk.
Misinformation is a real problem that affects many people, both in pathologies such as hyponatremia and in many health problems that are rare.
In Vitónica | Dehydration and physical performance: how to detect it (II).
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