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Asked by to Ben, Emily, Hattie, Jemma, Veronica on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Emily Hayward answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Hi Priyab,
The general reccomendation is to drink 2 litres of water per day. Your body will use a bit more water than this, however the rest of the water comes from the food you eat.
Too much can be harmful as you can suffer from ‘water intoxication’ however this is very unlikely in most perople as you have to drink a lot of water all at once, this usually only ever happens to althetes or babies. Too much water is bad as your body needs electrolytes (salts) too, so if you have too much then salts get lost and you suffer due to that. Most peoples kidneys can process 15 litres of water per day, so unless you are drinking more than that, and space out the water you drink you should be ok.
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Jemma Rowlandson answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Hi priyab and sophie!
The recommendation is 2 litres a day, which is about 8 glasses of water. This includes water in milk, fruit juice and even in your food. However if you do any exercise then you always need to drink more water to replace what you loose, especially if it’s hot.
Yes you can always have too much of a good thing, even water. The brain carefully controls the amount of water in your body. Water’s used to control the levels of certain minerals (like salt) in your bloodstream.
As Emily said in her answer the kidneys process the water in your bloodstream. Too much and they just will not be able to remove it fast enough. This means your blood contains less salt which can make you quite ill. Marathon runners have to be careful as they can drink too much while they are running, but normally it’s actually quite hard to drink too much water.
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