Exercise-associated hyponatremia sounds like it should be fake. It’s a condition that occurs when people drink so much fluid after exercise that their cells swell with excess water, causing seizures, comas and even death. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is all too real — a Georgia high school football player died from a suspected case of it earlier this week. Per USA Today:
Relatives of 17-year-old Zyrees Oliver had him removed from life support early Monday in a hospital in Marietta. He had no brain activity. Oliver was declared dead a short time later. Relatives say the youth complained of cramping during football practice on Tuesday at Douglas County High School, west of Atlanta. Aunt Tammy Chavis says the teen drank two gallons of water and two more gallons of Gatorade. Oliver’s mother picked him up because he couldn’t drive, and he later collapsed at home and was taken to the hospital by helicopter. Relatives say doctors told them Oliver suffered massive swelling around the brain from over-hydration.
Oliver had been on life support for five days, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. “It’s incomprehensible,” Nina Oliver, the teenager’s aunt, told the Journal-Constitution. “We had a healthy, beautiful, vibrant young man.” The teen loved football and ran track. He also excelled at school, achieving a 3.8 grade average. Death from overhydration is rare but also preventable. You simply need to drink less. However, that is sometimes easier said than done with all the conflicting and often incorrect advice that exists about how much water you should consume after intense activity. Family practice physician James Winger of Loyola University Health System in Illinois studied fluid-intake awareness using marathon runners. Per a 2011 Washington Post article:
The advice comes too late for Oliver, who had dreams of playing football in college. His family has plans to bury Oliver in New Jersey and has created a fundraising page on GoFundMe to help with the funeral costs.
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