By now, you must have heard about the woman, named Jennifer Strange, who died while participating in a radio contest in Sacramento, California called “Hold Your Wee For a Wii” in which contestants have to drink a lot of water without going to the bathroom. The contestant that lasts the longest wins a Nintendo Wii. If you haven’t heard of this, read the recap.
Audio from the day of contest is available. Click the play button below to hear it.
Notice how the station’s DJs seem to be the only ones who doubt that drinking excessive amounts of water is dangerous. Jennifer questions if it’s dangerous and a caller asked the same questions. The DJs shrug it off and even say something as stupid as “we’re 98 percent water”.
What gets me is that nobody from the radio station seems to have a clue about how the human body (or life in general) works. I question whether the station, KDND, has any employees that know what osmosis is. Perhaps the people that work at KDND are the same type of people that say ever-so witty things like “I learn by osmosis”. Clever.
I know that we covered this in grade 10 Biology, but I swear that we touched upon it in grade 9 Science, too…maybe even in grade 8. All living things are made up of cells. There are plenty types of cells; skin cells, bone cells, blood cells, root cells (in plants) and so on. Most of these cells contain various components like a nucleus and mitochondria, but that’s not important right now. Inside a cell is water, nutrients and electrolytes such as sodium and potassium.
And now for the almighty definition that should be regurgitated on a test…osmosis is the passage of water from a region of high water concentration through a semi-permeable membrane to a region of low water concentration. In the case of human cells, the “semi-permeable” membrane are the walls of the cells. Now, if there is a lower concentration of water outside of the cell, the cell will lose water by osmosis, and at that point you’re on the road to dehydration so drink something that isn’t a diuretic. If there are equal concentrations of water inside and outside of the cell, nothing will happen. Ready? If there is a higher concentration of water outside of the cell, perhaps because you’re drinking an insane amount of water, the cell will gain water by osmosis. If the cell keeps gaining water, it will swell and eventually burst. This happens in cases of water intoxication. Your body’s electrolytes become diluted, cells swell with water, you get a headache and nausea and can possibly die. It’s not brain surgery…it’s physiology! It really makes you question the education the contest’s organizers received.
