Water OD?

A number of women in Sweden got seriously ill after having followed rigorously low calorie diet
propagated by a company called Xtravaganza
One of the women got water poisoning.
That was new to me. Apparently you can suffer from water poisoning which basically is water overdose dissolving salts. In this particular case the woman drank 5 l daily, in more than 3 months, as recommended by the diet company.
Apparently it's not quite as the company describes their method:
Xtravaganza is a unique holistic concept for optimal balance.

Other examples of life threating diets? I guess they are many.

the mechanism of problem. the recommended daily intake is 1-2 liters/day. at a much larger consumption or very large amounts all at once- it greatly disturbs the important electrolyte balance of the blood and this interfers with brain function and electrical conductivity. another idiot diet that was done in a non medically acceptable manner and harm results

A woman died of too much of water after a race here in the US a few years ago.

My ex's uncle was in a mental hospital for a while, and he and another inmate/patient got in trouble for trying to get high by drinking too much water.

A lady died here from a water drinking contest not too long ago:
On January 12, 2007, Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old woman and a mother of 3, from Rancho Cordova, California, was found dead in her home by her mother, hours after trying to win one of Nintendo's Wii game consoles. KDND 107.9 "The End" radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest, involved drinking large quantities of water without urinating. A nurse actually called the radio station to warn them about the danger in which they were putting people, but the disc jockeys were less than impressed. Lucy Davidson, the winner of the contest, was severely sickened while picking up her prize. Civil charges against the radio station were filed by Jennifer's family,[23] and the family was eventually awarded $16.5 million in the ensuing wrongful death lawsuit.[24] The FCC has launched its own investigation to determine if the station violated the terms of its operating license.

I think that may be the case I was thinking of. Not a race.

It's called Hypornatremia. Hyper = not enough, Natremia = sodium condition. The sodium that should be in your body is diluted by all the water that is guzzled.

The Xtravaganza program apparently includes living on soups shakes provided by the company, and taking lot of psyllium to "clean yourself out." They recommend drinking lots & lots of water along with the psyllium. You are also supposed to eat some oil because "you need fat to burn fat," which is pretty much hooey. The initial diet is about 500 calories a day.

nutrax its a little confusing hypo=less than or not enuf hyper= more than normal or too much

If you think of them as the Greek equivalents of sub and super, which they are, it's easier to keep them straight.

There was a famous case in Britain in the mid-90s of a teenager on ecstasy who died from drinking too much water.

Yes, it's called hyPOnatremia, because the condition is too little sodium, not too much water. Too much water has basically diluted the sodium to the point where the concentration of sodium is too low for your body to function properly.

That may also be the reason why some people who sweat buckets while doing vigorous excercise feel groggy soon after doing it.

#8 - yep, Leah Betts. She drank several pints of water in a very short space of time and died from water on the brain. It was in the news this weekend as another teenager has died from taking Ecstasy, although there is no suggestion she died from drinking too much.

Vinny is seems to me that there was a death at a DC area marathon within the last couple of years. This and other incidents have led to changes in the way the monitor marathon runners.

That was my vague memory at first, Stan. I guess I conflated it with the disc jockey case. Googling I see that someone did die of hyponatremia at the Marine Corps Marathon in 2003. Also at the Boston Marathon in 2002 and at the London Marathon in 2007. And that

a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (April, 2005) found that 13 percent of Boston Marathon runners developed hyponatremia from drinking too much water.

Is 8 years a "couple"? Man I hate that I can't keep track of how many years pass anymore. I was thinking of the Marine Corp one.

In Texas, "couple" means anything greater than one.

Police officer: "How many beers did you have sir?"

Drunk driver: "Oh, just a couple"

as lola pointed out, water intoxication is not unknown in psychiatric hospitals and requires due diligence on the part of the staff to prevent susceptible patients from over indulging... we had one develop brain damage from hyponatrium...