A young mother in California is dead from water intoxication in a radio station’s competition trying to win a Nintendo Wii video game system for her children. This caught my eye because I’m back on the induction phase of the Atkins diet, which means drinking about 80 ounces of water a day. The difference is I take time to urinate and that was exactly what the competition specified you could not do, while drinking quarts of water. Somebody’s going to be sued, according to the science blog Respectful Insolence:
"Allthough I do not discount individual responsibility, most people are ignorant of how little it can take to cause water intoxication. It is not stated whether (1) contestants were warned that they could die from drinking too much water too fast or (2) qualified medical personnel were present to monitor the contest. In addition, it doesn’t say whether the radio station had vetted its idea with a physician. I doubt that it did, because any competent physician would have told the organizers that this contest was a very bad idea and dangerous, to boot."
Some doctors also think the Atkins diet is dangerous, but I have not found it so. YMMV.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 