Okay. Hi, Dana. So nice to see you. Again, I think it's

two years ago that you're last in the show. So I'm really glad

that you came back. Thank you so much.

I'm so happy to be back. Thank you.

Well, you are the water goddess from me, because you talk about

something really important, which is hydration. And I just

remember when I was not really sleeping well, someone told me

you probably dehydrated. And I didn't believe that at all,

until I actually drank more water and did some more

hydration things. And all of a sudden, I could sleep better. It

was amazing.

Yeah, I love that, that that that particular statement is so

important for me to hear. Because the truth is, there's no

studies that show by hydrating, better, you're going to sleep

better, there are studies that show by hydrating, better,

you're going to be able to sort of detoxify better, because

that's when we're sleeping were detoxifying. But I know, from a

clinical standpoint, that when you're you're better hydrated,

you are sleeping better. So I love I love that you found it

firsthand. And that's what a lot of the book is about. It's it's

being in your own skin and trying this odd and finding what

your your setpoint is for proper perfect hydration, you know, and

and standing in it and feeling it.

So why do you think so many people are dehydrated and don't

really take care of this important part of health.

So it's not really talked about as so much I'm here to talk

about it. And for many reasons. First of all, we're living in

different environments than we did even five years ago, with

all of the, you know, the the fluorescent lights, the the air

conditioned environments, the processed food, the medications

that we're taking. You know, we're just living in different

environments. We're living indoors and desert environments

than then than we ever have before. Cell phones, electronic

devices that are just giving off whether or not even think about

the 5g, what we don't know about it, we're still have we're

surrounded by electronic devices, everywhere we go. We're

not moving the way we used to move. But the Yeah, so So I

mean, we're just living in different environments than we

then we were even

so we have habits that were basically habits from an old

environment and the new environment would require us to

have better habits when it comes to hydration.

Absolutely. And also we were working harder people are

choosing to ignore their thirst because they don't want to get

up to go pee in the middle of their workday. You know, where

we're ignoring it we have to work harder and harder and and

you know, it's it's a problem.

So what from this new world environment is one of the things

that drains your water the most? That I'm sorry that what drains

the water the most? You know, where you feel like you get the

most dehydrated because of the fluorescent light or the air

condition or what what do you think makes you the most you

hydrated?

You know, I'm not sure but I think the first thing that comes

to my mind I live in New York City. And if you've you know

it's funny because people think summertime is more dehydrating

than than wintertime because we're sweating and we're hot. I

think living in New York in the wintertime with radiator heats

that are just sucking the hydration out of the air you

know, I it's the worst and you don't have a choice because most

apartments just come with them they no longer have your choice

of what kind of a You don't even have control over it they turn

up the heat so high in the wintertime that's just the first

thing that just sort of came to my mind at winter time and you

know, everybody's learned to put a pot of water on top of the

radiator so that it moistens the air a little bit but I think

yeah, I think indoor and you know fake environments that

we're living in also with rugs you know all the the carpets and

and materials and drywall and all this all the synthetic

things that are going in our environments to are playing a

big role too. So I couldn't I couldn't say which one is the

worst. I don't have a

all together not really good. Well, do you minifiers actually

work? Yeah. for hydration?

I think so for sure. Yeah, we even give this this is a little

bit off the off the topic, but we even give a little tip in the

book that to have a cup of tea at your desk, a hot cup of tea,

and not necessarily for drinking for inhaling that vapor. You

know, because breathing is a hydrating act you're inhaling

vapor into you know, wet vapor into your lungs. So yeah, so

definitely air What did you call them? What do they call to air?

Well, I just said it right. I know I'm blanking. We know what

it is. You made a fire. Here we go. hydrated today. Yeah. So how

do we know that we are dehydrated? You know, what are

the symptoms? I mean, I know having a dry mouth is probably

or having not peed for 12 hours, good signs. But what else?

Yeah, so like thirst and dry mouth, you're already too far

gone. Like you need to stave it off. Before that I put thirst,

thirst being thirsty last on the list. Meaning you want to start

you want to hydrate before you feel the thirst you want to get

above it. So, you know, one of the things I love to this is a

great thing to look for, we're meant to be to urinate every two

or three hours during our waking hours. So if you're not getting

up to pee every two or three hours, you're not hydrating

enough. But then some other things. fatigue, that afternoon

fatigue or brain fog that we often feel, and that most of us

go reach for sugar because we think our blood sugar's

dropping, I think more often is related to dehydration. So try

hydrating better before you go reach for that sugary, sort of

pick me up. So brain fog, fatigue, difficulty

concentrating, obviously, you know, things like headache and

joint pain and joint stiffness, muscle aches, those are all

known to be to be a sign of dehydration. Yeah, those are

some big ones. Dry skin, dry mucous membranes, we talked

about those kind of things.

So these are like the short term dehydration effects. Now what

about long term if you stay dehydrated, chronically? What

what's the problem with that?

Yeah, so there's not a podcast that I'll do without saying this

next sentence that I hope everybody's listening. Know, I

want to be special stuff that we got to not say. Learning how to

hydrate is the single most important thing you can do to

treat and prevent chronic disease. Hands down, you have to

start there. Before you go on any nutrition plan any new

lifestyle Benjamin, you have to learn how to hydrate first. And

that's because it's it's very clearly associated with certain

cancers, things like and very specifically colorectal cancer

and bladder cancers. And other things is heart disease, there

was a great study, it's in the book that we talked about these

young men who they purposely dehydrated them, and then took,

you know, before and after biopsies of their vessels. And

what they showed is that just with just a 2%, dehydration,

which we all can very easily get to in the middle of our day,

that it does the same amount of damage to their endothelial the

lining of their blood vessels as smoking a cigarette does. Oh my

goodness, that's amazing. Crazy. So heart disease. It's been

linked to diabetes, which is crazy. And and we know that it

is diabetes is is rampant, and it's on the rise. And while we

may be living longer, we certainly aren't living

healthier. And that living longer is changing because we've

now had a little bit of a dip not because of COVID or anything

but in the past few years, our life expectancy is not getting

any any longer. But But chronic diseases on the rise and

diabetes is up there with with a huge cause of chronic illness

and hydration first step and treating even diabetes and so

much so that in this past year, this is not in the book, because

it was published after this, that there is a study as a very

small study. It was an animal study, but it was the first of

its kind that said water may be a treatment for metabolic

syndrome, just by treating water. You could be treating

metabolic syndrome, which is pre diabetes. And, and then in you

know because of diabetes and the next step and with a shared

pathology of diabetes is Alzheimer's. Hydration is linked

D high chronic low grade dehydration is linked to

Alzheimer's disease as well.

And why is it not taught more in medical school? I mean, I

certainly not heard about it when I was in medical school

hydration or Yeah, why is nutrition barely taught in

medical school? You know, I wish I had an answer. It's a maybe

it's too simple. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know we need

to talk about the problem is I mean, I think the real problem

is is that we don't have a way of measuring it. We don't have a

way of measuring this simple low grade chronic dehydration. I

wish there was a simple blood test or a simple, you know,

measurement that you can take. We don't Have one. So going back

to what I just said, right in the beginning, we need to all

live in our bodies know what it feels like to be perfectly, you

know, optimally hydrated and stay on top of it all the time.

Yes. Now, the problem is that pretty much when everyone then

says, well, though, you just gonna have six glasses of water

or whatever the number is, but you actually say that's not what

optimal hydration is about.

No, no. And in fact, that's the tagline for the book eight

glasses a day is not the way so much like the food pyramid if

you remember, you know, the, the the original food pyramid that

was never really studied, right? Originally, it was it was a

bunch of nutritionists sitting around saying, well, we think

that, you know, meat should be at the top of the food pyramid.

So eat very little meat. And at the bottom is eat all the carbs.

You want lots of grains and pasta and breads, you know? And

then we now know that's probably not the best way to eat and, but

that was never really studied so much like the food pyramid, that

eight glasses a day it was never really studied and never comes

from nowhere. And think about how, how can you tell a five

foot two, you know, mother to hydrate the same as a six foot

four pro athlete, they both need to drink eight glasses a day.

It's crazy. It makes no sense. And I just I'm here to say that

unfortunately, there is not one. There's no good number for me to

give you if you twisted my arm and said I need a number I need

to know how much to drink. Then I will say okay, well, a little

bit better is drink half your weight in ounces. half your

weight in ounces. Yeah, I don't know where you are you in France

in French. So give me this in later. Okay, no problem. Okay.

But that is a that is definitely a better talking about pounds or

kilos. Doesn't matter. Oh, yeah. No, it doesn't. Well, because

the allowances you would wait, Okay, got it. Right. Right.

Okay, so that's interesting. Wow. All right. You know, the

questions a lot of I'm sorry,

yes. But I want to say even that, think about this for a

second. Let's say I you know, I say somebody who is you know, an

athlete sweats a lot during the day, you know, is running

around, that still may not even be enough for them or you I know

because I do a lot of you know ketogenic diets. If you've ever

gone on a ketogenic diet, it's very it's it's it acts as a

diuretic, you're peeing a lot. So I would even say people who

are on a keto diet, they need to drink three quarters of your

weight in ounces, and much higher number. But a simple rule

of thumb if you had to get it out of me, I'd say start with a

half your weight in ounces. Okay,

so give me an example. So what's let's say I am weighing 190

pounds so that would be in ounces then

80 ounces of that is a lot Wow. Yeah, but but that does not take

into account what you're eating. Okay, so so it may not be that

that's why that's why no nope, none of those numbers of how

much water I should drink is great. You know, if I know there

are days that I drink one glass of water a day I do it first

thing in the morning, and then I have a great lunch a really

juicy salad with you know, lots of vegetables and maybe some

blueberries in there and then I have a great dinner a really

healthy dinner of just some fish and more vegetables and maybe

even have a green smoothie throughout the during the day.

And I'm feeling fantastic I don't need to drink anymore.

There are some people can get away with drinking one glass of

water but but you have to know what that is and and you have to

include food which is really the impetus of writing the book so

it's it's about eating your water and and eating more. And

the way to do that is by eating more more plants and vegetables

and and drinking green smoothies, basically blended

greens with water and adding some electrolytes and minerals

into your into your fluid content by just by like maybe a

little your first class of morning with a squeeze of lemon

and a little pinch of salt, Real Salt that has the full range of

minerals that helps structure your water, which we can talk

about. Yes,

absolutely. But before we go there, why is food better than

actually drinking water? I mean, is it because in food, the water

in itself has a different structure already or

absolutely does. So we wrote the book based on you know, there's

so much research based on Dr. Gerald Pollock's work he wrote,

he discovered that there's a new phase of water that exists which

was mind blowing to me. We know that water exists is liquid ice

and vapor. We've always known that Now they're telling us

there's a whole new phase of water. And he calls it easy

water, we call it structured water or gel water, there's lots

of different ordered waters another name for it, there's a

bunch of different names for it. But it's this other phase of

water. And it literally is how those water molecules, those h2o

molecules, how they layer upon each other. And it's in that

layering that they start to share electrons. And, and there

are certain things that can help create more of that structured

water in the body in the body, sunlight being one of them, or

actually, any light really does it sunlight does it were really

good. And infrared light does it the best, far infrared, even

near infrared. So so we need light, we need water and greens,

chlorophyll help structure water as well. So it's and then the

other thing is in nature, that's how water exists. You look at

cucumbers, look at a cucumber seed, you know, inside the

cucumber, it's surrounded by gel water there is there it's loaded

with gel water. So it's believed that it's in that form. That's

what's found in nature. And it's also in that form. That's what's

found in our bodies and ourselves within ourselves.

intracellularly. So the idea of eating your water, it helps

structure the water, it helps get it into the cells and keep

it into your cells longer. One of the ways that you can

experiment with this or or even know it for yourself is think

about how many times you've said to yourself, I've been drinking

water all day long, I can't quench my thirst, I can't, I

can't satiate my thirst. And then try the same, you know, the

same experiment where instead of you know, maybe adding some some

a green smoothie and not having to drink so much water or adding

more plants to your diet. Watermelon, you know, watermelon

is so much more quenching to your thirst than just drinking

plain bulk water. Because it's structured.

And as a structured water than get really structured into our

system, what does it get first into another form like liquid

and then it gets restructured? Do we know that?

We don't know that? That's it's a really great, great question.

We don't know that. And you know, that's where the clinical

sort of experimenting with yourself and trying on knowing

what what it feels like to be properly hydrated, falls into

place.

I love to be my own experiment. I think that's great. Yes. So

I'm gonna do it. Now one of the things that I really learned

last time where the magic of these chia seeds and I just felt

like wow, since ever, then that is a form of hydrating yourself

without having to drink a lot. So talk a little bit about those

and how they where you can find out about those.

So there's a fantastic book called Born to Run. I'm gonna

blank on the author's name Born to Run any runner who's knows

this book. It's a fabulous book. And he talks about this tribe of

desert dwellers. the Tarahumara Tarahumara tribe, I believe

they're in somewhere in Mexico, and they're elite distance

runners, and they do it for fun. 50 mile marathons for fun, and

they run they they run with chia seeds, and they drink very

little water and they were and their chia seeds sustain them

because it holds on to that water, it acts like a sponge. It

helps absorb that water better. That was the original how it

sort of all came to be. And then when you when you think about

it, you if anybody ever has ever made a chia pudding, where you

put water or let's say coconut water with chia seeds, they

plump up, they create, literally a jelly like substance around

them. So they're incredibly hydrating, and they hold on to

that hydrating. The other thing about chia seeds is that they're

loaded with omega three that are parent omega three fatty acids,

which we need our a la alpha linoleic acid, we need, you

know, that's very important for our cell membranes. And that's

important there are these, all of our cell membranes are

surrounded in fat. We have a whole chapter on fat, which is

sort of an outlier, an outlier of a chapter, but it is a

passion of mine because we were not healthy if we don't have

good healthy fats in our diet. You as a cardiologist, I'm

assuming also a little bit Well, yeah,

and I also feel like fat is so has such a bad reputation and

it's so important at the same time. So how do you then TSH

just one or two spoons a little water and wait until they are

crawling up and then you check them?

So there's a couple there's a couple different ways you could

throw them right in your smoothie. You can make chia

puddings, there's 1000 recipes online for for chia pudding. So

you can make really simple ones. Usually it's I do two

tablespoons in a little like ramekin with whatever kind of I

usually use a plant. You know, some people use if you're on a

keto diet, they use heavy cream, and it's an unbelievably

delicious dessert and you could do some, you know, maple syrup

or some fruit, you could throw some shaved almonds on there,

make a delicious dessert with it. Just throw it in your

smoothie. There is one little caveat to that there are there

are some people that can be sensitive to the lectins in chia

seeds, much like the lectins in beans and that kind of thing and

other legumes so though you may want to soak them overnight and

just plain water and then spoon it out and put it in your in

your smoothie or in your you can throw them on your salad. You

could eat raw chia seeds on your salad too much like you would

throw flax seeds on your salad too. There's lots of ways chia

seeds are Yeah, they've become a bit of a trend and they're

there's so much nice recipes online for them.

Now do you find it better to drink soda and coffee and tea

than drinking? Not at all or should people in general just

not do that stuff?

Okay, so what I am hoping that when you say soda you been

bubbly water like seltzer water. Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm eating

the good stuff. All that has different colors to it. Yeah,

soda needs to go sorry. Soda is horrible. bubbly water like

mineral water. I love there's some new new brands out there.

There's a brand that that got me off of Diet Coke. I used to be a

diet coke fiend for my whole life tab first when I was a

little kid and then we got onto Diet Coke. And there's a brand

called spindrift that has it's basically just flavored seltzer

water with with like grapefruit and nothing bad in it. Zero

carbs. It's that's how I got off of Diet Coke. So, yeah, and it's

Yeah, so sodas, not good. There's all kinds of crap in

there that needs to get rid of and especially diet soda, I

think is probably even worse than regular soda, you know,

between regular sugar and I think that the fake sweeteners

are probably going to turn out we're gonna learn that are far

worse for us than even regular sugar. Not that you should be

eating all that regular sugar and soda, coffee and tea though

that's a different story. And I find this is always I always get

like the yay that we've done some research and that anything

under four cups of coffee a day is not a diuretic, so So yeah,

we can do and I don't know the equivalent of how much tea that

is because tea is less caffeine. But I wanted to say something

about that if I were to drink four cups of coffee a day I

would be a complete nervous wreck. Like I can't handle that

much caffeine, caffeine is a drug and people need to know

what their you know what their their stress point is for that.

So I'm not I'm not advocating for cups of coffee a day for

most people. But from a hydration standpoint, it's okay.

From a from a caffeine standpoint may not be okay for

somebody people really directly affects your your adrenals that

kind of thing. So, I think it's a little excessive and anything

above that I think is excessive anyway, but coffee, herbal tea,

you can have as much herbal tea as you want in a day. That's

great.

So when I have my little four o'clock dip, I can have a coffee

and do two good things I hydrate myself and give myself a little

caffeine that Thank You made my day well you know one of the

things that a lot of people struggle with is drinking in the

evenings the Hannah done with a day they feel like okay, I guess

it's gonna hydrate myself and then there is a problem with

going four or five times a night to the bathroom. So is there

anything that you would say people can do that prevents this

from happening and still allows you to hydrate?

Yeah, so you have to play around with it you know we lose as we

get older we lose our ability to make a hormone called ADH

antidiuretic hormone right? So that is a known thing as we get

older. That's why as we get older we get up more in the

middle of the night to go pee. So it's you have to sort of

weigh out what like you said hydrating better helps you

sleep. It's it's incredibly individualized. I do think that

by adding some chia to maybe that after that late night tea

cup of tea or something herbal tea could help hold on to that

water a little bit longer so that you're not having to get up

but you're going to have to experiment there. There are some

people who just period can't eat it can't drink much after 7pm or

else they're you know, seven, eight o'clock. They're up in

peeing all night you know or a couple times a night and if

you're somebody like me if I wake up to pee then I have a

very hard time falling back to sleep. So you have to you have

to find what works for you. I don't have a great answer for it

unfortunately is

hydrating food slower in that regard than drinking pure water

and

I definitely think so. Absolutely think so. So salad

would be maybe a good alternative to just drinking

glasses,

strawberries, some berries or something could be a nice little

hydrating snack. A peach you know a plum could be a more

hydrating thing for you but instead of drinking so much

liquid.

So has your work about hydration changed your life has improved

it 100%

Yeah, yeah, it's a in so many ways. I mean, let alone from the

joy that I get out of teaching people how to hydrate and lay

people and seeing the dramatic changes in such a short period

of time, it literally takes one day, this is not something you

have to do, and, and go on a diet for three months before you

see the effects of it, you will notice that an effect in one

day, so let alone that's, you know, that is a whole nother

story. But yeah, hydration is, you know, I am somebody who with

diet. I'm not a bio hacking doctor. So I'm not somebody

who's like, or I'm not, and I'm not a I'm not a personal

trainer. So I'm not like you have to be 100% if you you know,

go go go, you got to, you got to, we're gonna be a sticklers

on your diet, I do subscribe to that 8020 rule with diet, right?

So if you give me 80% you're gonna see benefit from going on

a low carb diet or, for the most part, for the most part. With

hydration though, it's something that I found that it is

something day in and day out, you have to be on top of. And

that is the one thing like and it's not that hard. It's just

not hard. It's not necessarily even like I said, drinking more

and more water. It's about making your dinner plate 75%

vegetables, you know, cook you know, how about cooking more

than one vegetable for dinner, one green vegetable, make a few

vegetables for dinner, fill up on vegetables, have a little bit

of meat have a little bit of, of grains, if you're if you're

eating grains, you know, so for me, it just it took so much off

of my beating myself up, you know, with with diet and and and

now just it made my life easier, better, I move better. I feel

better, as as I've seen in so many other people as well.

Wow, that's very encouraging. And it's so nice that something

can actually be easy. Because a lot of things just feel like oh

my god, Mount Everest to climb and flip flops. So this is

really nice that you actually offer something as simple

solution to feel dramatically better in a short amount of

time. Who can offer that? Thank you very much for that. Now how

can people find out more about you and your work and your book

and all the good stuff?

My website probably best is www.dr dana Cohen calm Dr. Dana

Cohen calm. The book is called quench it's found everywhere

books are sold Amazon. It's not in French. It's in six other

languages, though it's in Japanese and German and Italian

and Spanish and Portuguese. Well, that's a problem. I know

we got to get through to get to this point.

Sure. Okay, so does there any last advice that you would like

to give people that you know, still feel like maybe I don't

know about that hydration? What do you think like they could

just get started with Okay,

I'm gonna give to two quick things. First thing every

morning, wake up, drink eight to 16 ounces of water with a little

squeeze of lemon and a pinch of sea salt. Start there. And then

the second thing is and this is a little bit of a bigger ask but

but not so much because it's it is a it's a craze, to have one

green smoothie a day. So a green smoothie is blended vegetables

in a in a blender with water and then whatever else you want to

put in there meaning what if you want to put a little fruit for

flavor if you want to put a little chia seeds you want to

put a lemon and ginger go ahead and do that but not a milkshake.

I'm not talking about yogurt and an other milks and protein

powder. That's a meal. This is a green smoothie. So try to keep

it light in the sugar drink you know, but but heavy on green

vegetables like spinach, chard, celery, try doing that if you've

never done that before it will change your life.

I love green smoothies I have to say absolutely. And it does keep

you going for a long time. It's definitely great sustenance.

Well, fantastic suggestions. And thank you so much for coming

back and I'll get you back again because this is such great

information. It's so important and especially now that the

summer is almost over.

It's it's gonna have to be at your studio in France.

If we can do that at any time. Come over and then we can

translate that book for you. Okay, thank you very much. Take

care.

Bye bye. Well, this