Water is supposed to be something a person should drink every day, and it actually is! Good reasons to drink water are when playing a sport, eating a meal and other examples such as these, but can a person drink too much water? The answer is yes. Because of too much water drank, it can lead to a condition called intoxication. It is resulted in hyponatremia which is the dilution of sodium in the body. Water intoxication is commonly seen in infants under six months and in athletes. Babies might drink countless bottles of water in each day or formula diluted too much while athletes lose water and electrolytes by sweating. When a person drinks too much water from being dehydrated, water intoxication and hyponatremia are results if it is not accompanied with electrolytes. During intoxication, or too much water enters the body’s cells, the tissues swell because of the excess fluid. A person’s cells have to maintain a specific concentration gradient so that excess water, or serum, induces sodium in an attempt to get back the necessary concentration. As more water accumulates, the serum sodium concentration declines and that would be hypothermia. A way that cells attempt to recuperate the electrolyte balance is for the water outside of the cell to come back in the cell by osmosis and osmosis the movement of water from higher to lower concentration. Electrolytes are more concentrated inside the cells than they are outside, but the water outside the cell is way more concentrated because it contains fewer electrolytes than the water inside the cell. Electrolytes and water try to balance concentration. Hypothetically speaking, cells could swell up to where it can burst. Water intoxication has the same effects like drowning in water. The imbalance of electrolytes and the swelling of tissues can definitely cause not only an irregular heartbeat, but allow fluid into the lungs and the fluttering of eyelids along with putting pressure on the brain and nerves, causing seizures, coma and possibly death; unless water intake is regulated and salt is managed then the treatment before the swelling of tissue causes to much cellular damage, a whole recovery is predictable within days. Really though, it is how fast a person drinks water and not how much is dank. Healthy adults with kidneys can process fifteen liters of water a day. Most likely, a person will not suffer from water intoxication even if a lot of water is drunk. It just all depends on how quickly a person intakes water at certain amounts. But most adults do need about three quarts of fluid each day and a lot of water comes from food. Therefore, 8 to 12 eight ounce glasses a day is commonly suggested even though more water might be needed if the weather is dry, if a person is exercising, or if a person is taking medication. To sum up the point, a person can drink way too much water, but if you don’t happen to be an infant or an athlete then water intoxication is highly uncommon for someone.