Are you an aquaholic? Drinking too much water 'can be bad for your health!!!

Drinking six to eight glasses of water a day can boost concentration, give us a better complexion and more energy, keep headaches at bay, help us to detox and even curb our appetites. As a result, many of us carry a bottle of trusty H²O with us wherever we go. So it may come as a bit of a surprise to find that experts have started calling into question the health benefits of drinking lots of water, suggesting that consuming more than the recommended one-and-a-half to two litres of it a day is more than the body needs. So, how can drinking too much water be harmful? And how much is too much? IT CAN CAUSE INSOMNIA Drinking large amounts of water, particularly at the end of the day, can disrupt sleep.When we fall asleep, our brains release ADH, anti-diuretic hormone, to slow down kidney function and stop us feeling the need to urinate during the night,’ says Professor Whitely.‘If you drink two or three glasses of water in the evening, however, all that extra fluid working its way through your system is likely to override the effect of ADH, fill your bladder, and have you getting up in the small hours. It can then be difficult to fall back to sleep.’

YOU CAN DIE OF WATER POISONING In 2008, Jacqueline Henson — a 40-year-old mother from Huddersfield, who was on a stringent weight-loss programme — died of water intoxication after drinking four litres of water in the space of a couple of hours. And there have been other cases of people fatally ‘overdosing’ on water. ‘Drinking too much water too quickly — and we’re talking litres of water here, rather than cupfuls — can play havoc with the delicate balance of salts in the body,’ says Dr Frankie Phillips, of the British Dietetic Association.‘If we drink a lot of water in a very short space of time, the kidneys can’t remove the excess fluid from our bodies quickly enough, and our blood becomes more diluted than it should be, with very low concentrations of salt. ‘The salt levels in blood and body cells are usually the same. But if the blood suddenly becomes more dilute, it can cause cells, in particular brain cells to swell. This can cause pressure in the skull, which can lead to headaches, and in serious cases, hyponatraemia or water intoxication, which can be fatal.’

SO HOW MUCH FLUID DO YOU NEED A DAY? Detox gurus, personal trainers and diet authors usually suggest we should be drinking at least two litres of water a day — sometimes as much as four litres — but according to current NHS advice, most adult women need only around 1.6 litres of fluids in general (rather than water, specifically) a day, and men around two litres, to keep the body working efficiently. All drinks can count towards this official fluid target — including hot drinks such as tea and coffee, milk and fruit juices and even the water contained in foods such as fruits and vegetables. Water is a good drink because it hydrates without adding calories to your diet. But a mixture of different drinks throughout the day — such as milk, which is rich in calcium, and small amounts of fruit juice, which contain good levels of vitamin C — is best if you want a healthy balance of nutrients.