Did Too Much Water Kill A Fit 22-Year-Old?

Today, via email, Dr. Mercola sent out an article which appeared in a London newspaper entitled, "Too Much Water Can Kill Even A Fit 22-Year-Old."

The article stated that a 22-year-old London marathon runner, David Rogers, a fitness instructor who completed the race in less than four hours, collapsed after he crossed the finish line.

He was rushed to the hospital where, sadly, he died. The article suggested that Rogers died as a result of hyponatremia, a lack of sodium in his body that can be caused by drinking too much water.

This is partly true and mostly false.

He was the ninth athlete in the 27-year history of the London marathon to die. Almost 60 of this year's more than 36,000 runners ended up needing hospital treatment. Ambulance volunteers treated more than 5,000 runners, generally for heat exhaustion and dehydration.

The article was correct when it stated that David Rogers collapsed and died from a lack of sodium (hyponatremia) but was dead wrong on the cause! Drinking too much water was not the cause of David's exhaustion and dehydration. The cause of death was a lack of sodium (hyponatremia) due to systemic latent tissue acidosis, then compensated acidosis, and finally, decompensated acidosis.

What does this mean? The body will do everything to maintain the delicate pH of the blood at 7.365.

When you are running a marathon or substantially over-exercising, the body pulls water and alkalinity into the blood as it throws acids out into the tissues. This is why you get sore after exercising. This is called latent tissue acidosis or lactic acid acidosis.

The body will use or employ salt as the major buffer for the increased metabolic acids. The formula is: NaCl + H2O + CO2 = NaHCO3 + HCL.

As the salt of the body is being used up, acids are still increasing — especially when running a marathon.

The body tries to get rid of the excess acids through respiration, perspiration, urination or defecation. When running a marathon you are expelling acids that are buffered with salt through respiration and perspiration. This is why your sweat tastes salty. When the salt begins to run low, you experience light headedness, dizziness, brain fog, disorientation, muddle-thinking, fatigue, shallow breathing, just to name a few.

If salt (not sugar) and water (not just any water - to learn about the right kind of water to drink go to:

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/water-chemistry.htm)

are not replenished, then the symptoms become worse and go to exhaustion, passing out, cardiac arrest and then death. So, in this particular acidic condition that we are talking about, we aren't "acidotic" in so many words, rather we are base deficient. This is why 80 or 90-year-old folks are shrunk up, little people. They have no mineral stores left.

When all the minerals are gone, so are we, and our battery runs down and dies!

It is just like a battery, i.e., we are just like a battery - an alkaline battery. The cells of our body do carry a charge that can be measured as the oxidation/reduction potential of the blood. This energy potential decreases with aging, just as the minerals do. We become more oxidized/acidic (so the need for antioxidants, like Glutathione are critical.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/glutathione.htm)

Both things occur because of hyper-proteinization, too much protein, hyper-carbonization, too much carbohydrate and over-exercise, too much lactic acid. In such a situation, we aren't acidotic as they say in a hospital or “in shock.” Rather, things have gone so bad that the very pH of the blood itself begins to change — Code Blue.

Rather, in a state of latent "acidosis" we are full of stored tissue acid residues, residues stored in the interstitial fluids andtissues for a ride out on base minerals (including the “big four” of calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium) that are not there.

This is the “latent” in latent tissue "acidosis". Blood values have not started to change yet, so the acidosis is essentially stored in the tissues. The tissues are acidic, but technically, this is not an acidosis either, as the blood still appears in the normal range of 7.35 to 7.4 (ideal is 7.365).

If things get worse, this latent "acidosis" can proceed into what is called a compensated acidosis.

This means the blood pH itself still hasn't started to change but other values in the blood such as blood serum sodium, potassium, bicarbonate and carbon dioxide have had to change to keep the blood pH the same or 7.365 at which it is supposed to be maintained.

Decompensated acidosis is when the blood pH itself is affected. As the blood itself begins to be effected, what traditional medicine refers to as “compensated metabolic acidosis” is the next to develop. This is when the blood pH begins to be stressed.

“Compensated” means the blood pH really doesn't change — not yet. When it begins to change it is no longer compensated, it has become decompensated. In a compensated acidosis, other bodily functions have to kick-in to help deal with the excess acid.

The first event that happens to start the compensation process is that the breathing rate increases in order to blow off more carbonic acid which helps keeps the pH "normal", or 7.365.

The body will go through many “summersaults” to keep the critical blood pH of 7.365. Once it lowers, the body heads into a more serious situation of decompensated acidity or or bloodserum acidosis.

This is revealed in the arterial blood gases via a lowered PCO2. The “P” stands for partial pressure and this concentration is the measure of how much carbon dioxide there is in the blood.

Carbon dioxide, CO2, combines with water, H2O, to form carbonic acid, H2CO3 or bicarbonate. If you blow off carbonic acid which will lower the carbon dioxide content of the blood, you will increase the pH of the blood. This increased breathing rate happens in diabetic acidosis for the same reason.

Also, the plasma bicarbonate level [HCO3-] which is measured as part of the blood gases is decreased. Because of the relative base deficiency, the stomach can no longer produce the required amount of bicarbonate in the cover cells that should come from the sodium, carbon dioxide and water from the blood serum.

There is not enough sodium bicarbonate coming into the bloodstream to keep it alkaline because there is not enough salt to make it. Also since the sodium and other base minerals are decreased, bicarbonate is actually lost through the kidneys or spores of the skin because there isn't enough carbon dioxide to connect with the sodium bicarbonate so the kidneys can reabsorb it back into the blood stream.

This is what hospital medicine refers to as compensated metabolic acidosis. It begins with a lowered PCO2 concentration, decreased bicarbonate level [HCO3-] with little effect on blood pH yet.

Then, the low PCO2 concentration of the body begins using up the reserves of bicarbonate. But once the reserve bicarbonate is used up, the body continues its downward spiral into decompensated acidosis in which the pH of the blood begins dropping below 7.365.

In the type of latent "acidosis" that I am talking about, there are no changes in the blood gases. The blood pH, PCO2, [HCO3-], are all normal. The latent tissue "acidosis" I am talking about hasn't developed into the compensated metabolic acidosis described above. When the breathing rate can no longer get any faster, and when the kidneys can no longer increase their function to keep up with the acid load and reabsorb sodium bicarbonate, then the blood pH itself does start to change.

It can fall form 7.365 down to 7.2. This is decompensated metabolic acidosis and is a most serious condition. At blood pH of 6.95 the heart relaxes with coma and death.

For David, his death would not have happened if he simply would have added sodium to the hydration during the race and his body would NOT have gone into decompensated acidosis.

The following are several of my recomendations for preventing latent tissue
acidosis, compensated acidosis and finally decompensated acidosis:

1) Drink 1 liter of alkaline water per 30 pounds of weight will help to buffer metabolic acids and will follow salt for neutralizing metabolic acids.

2) Eating at least 1 to 3 tsp. of pure unprocessed sea salt per liter of alkaline water will help the body to make sodium bicarbonate for maintaining the delicate pH of the body fluids, especially the blood.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/phlavor.htm

The body uses sodium in the body for very many purposes, but here are some of the most important:

1) To buffer extracellular and intracellular acids for the purpose of maintaining the alkaline design of the human body.

2) To manage alkaline hydration of the cells and thus the body.

3) To produce magnesium for managing the temperature of the body through nuclear transformation of the sodium ion in the following equation: Na + H <=> Mg.

4) To manage the concentration of potassium in the body to help regulate the alkaline pH of the cell in the following equation: Na + O <=> K.

5) To manage the concentration of calcium in the body to help buffer metabolic acids (also from over-exercise such as running a marathon).

6) To provide electrical conductivity for every cell in the body and especially the heart.

You can live without food for 40 days.

You can live without water for 4 days.

You can live without salt for only a few hours.

When I exercise, I always carry my 2-ounce bottle of liquid spray, pHlavor Salt. Before I drink any water, I will spray my mouth several times with the pHlavor Salt and then drink several ounces of water.

Something as simple as drinking alkaline water (9.5 pH at -250 mV) with sprays of salt would have been the difference between David Rogers living or dying.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/phlavor.htm

To blame over hydration with water as the cause of death is UNBELIEVABLE to me. How we have lost our way from the basics.

My wish is for Dr. Mercola to rethink his article and come to the conclusion that the only cause of sickness, disease and disease-related death is the over-acidification of the tissues, and then blood, due to an inverted way of living, eating, drinking, and thinking.

I have coached and counseled many world-class athletes, including America’s great ultra marathon champion, Stu Mittleman, who in the summer of 2000 ran from San Diego to New York in 56 days, running approximately two marathons each and every day. I have personally run seven marathons under 4 hours which I would never do again. Running marathons, for me personally, is one of the least brilliant things I have done in my life. This was before I fully understood what I know now and understand much more completely.

What I proved, of course, was that I could run 26 miles without killing myself from latent tissue acidosis and then decompensated acidosis. May I suggest that in all probability the true cause of
David Rogers’ death was his decision to run a marathon which led to a sodium deficiency, which led to latent tissue acidosis, which led to decompensated acidosis, which led to death.

Running marathons and over-exercising are often hazardous to one’s health. This level of physical stress creates too much acid in too short a time and can kill you.

To learn more about pH Miracle Living go to:

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/index.html