In late 2023, actor Brooke Shields suffered a seizure after “flooding” her body with water. Shields became dangerously low on sodium while preparing for her show by drinking loads of water. “I flooded my system and I drowned myself,” she would later explain.
“And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or your body, you can have a seizure.” Shields said she found herself walking around outside for “no reason at all”, wondering: “Why am I out here?” Then I walk into the restaurant and go to the sommelier who had just taken an hour to watch my run through. That’s when everything went black.
Then my hands drop to my side and I go headfirst into the wall. Shields added that she was “frothing at the mouth, totally blue, trying to swallow my tongue”. Like Shields, many people may be unaware of the dangers of drinking excessive amounts of water – especially because hydration is so often associated with health benefits.
Models and celebrities often advocate drinking lots of water to help maintain clear, smooth skin. Some social media influencers have promoted drinking a gallon of water daily for weight loss. But excessive water consumption can cause hyponatraemia – a potentially fatal condition of low sodium in the blood.
The body strictly regulates its water content to maintain the optimum level of total body water and “osmolality” – the concentration of dissolved particles in your blood. Osmolality increases when you are dehydrat.
