DRINK CLEAN, SAFE WATER
Make sure your water is safe. Only 1 percent of the world’s water is safe to drink. Today, more people are questioning not only the quality of their drinking water but the container it comes in. If you are concerned about your health, you should not just assume your water is safe to drink—you need to take active steps to find out for sure. And if there is a problem, you need to correct it. Most contaminants in water fall into four categories:

 

 

 
  • Environmental chemicals, including pesticides, herbicides, and trihalomethanes, a by-product of chlorination, and chemicals that can leach out of plastic bottles
  • Heavy metals, including lead, copper, and nitrates
  • Bacteria, including the most common coliform bacteria
  • Radiological pollution, including radon, radium, and uranium
If you’re concerned about your water, the first step is to analyze it to find out what, if any, contamination exists. Once any questions about the quality of the water are answered, necessary steps to improve it, including filtration and finding safe sources, can be taken more logically.

 

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Problems with Plastic
Water (and other foods) stored in plastic containers may not be as safe to drink as once thought. For many years, plastic has been suspect regarding the possibility that harmful chemicals contained in many plastic materials can leach into water. Research continues to show this as a real hazard. Here are some recommendations:

 

 

 
  • Avoid using plastic as long-term storage containers for water or other foods. Instead, save all your glass containers to use for food storage.
  • Certain foods react strongly with plastic. Avoid buying vinegar, tomato, alcohol, and similar products housed in plastic containers.
  • Remove the plastic parts to bottles containing these foods. For example, some bottles of vinegar contain plastic pouring spouts that can be removed.
  • Use glass bottles for water when away from home.
For everyday water bottles, it’s best to avoid water from the store as these products are months or years old and thus have a higher risk of plastic chemicals in the water. Instead, add fresh water to your bottles each day. Water in your bottle for a day poses little if any risk compared to water that’s been there for months. Having a healthy source of water at home, such as well water or filtered water from your tap, is key to having safe drinking water during training. When bottles are empty at the end of the day, rinse them with water and let dry overnight (this will also help prevent mold or bacteria from growing).

A healthy endurance athlete should be able to properly regulate significant amounts of water consumed during a race—even up to a gallon an hour in extreme conditions (although there is usually no need for this amount of water intake). This is because the body has effective mechanisms to regulate water. In addition to brain and adrenal hormones, both the kidneys (which remove excess water from the blood) and an effective sweating mechanism prevent water from accumulating in the body. Even water loss through the intestines and lungs contributes slightly to this regulation.

The fact is, however, that athletes can weigh more after a race due to abnormal holding of water. This can result in abnormally (sometimes seriously) low sodium as previously discussed. The problem of low sodium associated with excess water has been called exertional hyponatremia. In my experience, many, if not most, of these athletes are in Stage 1 or 2 of the overtraining syndrome.

Generally, athletes who gain weight during endurance events—typically about 10 percent of all those in a race—may be those individuals with some type of health problem, often one of a functional nature. Of these, about 30 percent develop hyponatremia.

This issue is complex and very individual. Rather than suggesting that athletes restrict water consumption (which may only be treating the symptoms) and risk further dehydration, addressing potential health problems that could affect how the body regulates water and sodium should be a priority. Many of these potential health problems, including adrenal dysfunction, can be evaluated at rest in athletes, while others may be very subtle and appear only following long training. The right health-care professional can be a valuable asset in helping to resolve these cases.