Transcript

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00:00 Dr. Rani Banik 

Hydration. We all know that water is essential for life. We need water to supply oxygen and nutrients to our tissues and also to carry away waste products and toxins, and also to keep our joints lubricated and our eyes lubricated and our brain healthy. We need water for all of those things.

 

But the question is, how much water is enough? How much water do you need to drink in a day? Is it eight ounces? Is it a little bit more? Is it a little bit less? Well to get your burning questions about hydration answered, stay tuned for this week's episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™ with me, Dr. Rani Banik and my special guest, who's a hydration expert. So stay tuned to The Eye-Q Podcast™ coming right up.

 

00:45 Narrator  

Welcome to The Eye-Q Podcast™ hosted by Dr. Rani Banik, America's integrative neuro-ophthalmologist. Get ready to explore the intricate connections between the brain and the eye through neuro ophthalmology journey with Dr. Rani into the world of integrative ophthalmology, where cutting edge science meets holistic wellness, discover how to protect and preserve vision through powerful preventative strategies based on ismart nutrition and lifestyle modifications, whether you're an eye care provider or just curious about how to maintain healthy vision so you can see the world more clearly. Join Dr. Rani for exciting and eye opening discussions, which will no doubt raise your 'Eye-Q'.

 

01:25 Dr. Rani Banik 

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™ where you can gain insights about vision health and brain health and raise your 'Eye-Q'. I'm your host, Dr. Rani Banik, America's integrative neuro- ophthalmologist, and today, I'm so excited to welcome our guest for today's episode, Dr. Dana Cohen.

 

Dana Cohen, MD, received her degree from St George's University School of Medicine and completed her three year internal medicine residency at Albany Medical Center. She then worked side by side with the late Dr. Robert Atkins, a true pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, well respected by her peers and beloved by her patients. 

 

Dr. Cohen, most importantly, is a clinician. She is an internal medicine doctor who has spent her career focusing on integrative medicine. She has helped 1000s of patients find relief from a variety of health problems, utilizing the Principles of Integrative and Functional Medicine. Dr. Cohen practices with an emphasis on the individual and understanding that no two patients are alike. Her results demonstrate that there is an art to medicine and a way to connect with patients on a level much deeper than what is achieved through mainstream medicine, she focuses on nutrition and limits her patient's reliance on prescription medications by using diet lifestyle changes and nutritional supplementation.

 

Dr. Cohen's first book, quench with co author, Gina Bria, has garnered rave reviews and has a cult following of devotees. It's been published in six different languages. Her next book, published by Hay House, is due out September 24 in this book called Fuel Up, harness the power of your blender and cheat your way to good health.

 

I'm so excited to welcome to The Eye-Q Podcast™ Dr. Dana Cohen. Dr. Dana is a close friend. I've known her for years now. We belong to the same Mindshare community, and it's been a pleasure learning from her and collaborating with her, and I'm just so excited to have her on the show. So welcome. Dr. Dana!

 

03:33 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Thank you for having me.

 

03:37 Dr. Rani Banik 

I know I've interviewed you before for other formats, like we did in Instagram LIVE way back in the day during the pandemic. So it's great to have you here on the podcast. So for those of you who don't yet know Dr. Cohen is very unique in that she's an integrative and functional medicine provider based here in New York City. So, Dr. Dana, would you mind just sharing with us kind of your journey? You're an MD, but now you practice, I guess you've been doing this for a long time. You practice functional medicine. So how did you get involved in this? Because I think you're one of the, probably one of the first pioneers in this industry.

 

04:19 Dr. Dana Cohen  

So yeah, I've been practicing in New York City solely integrative medicine since 1998. I was just finishing up residency, and I saw an ad looking for jobs, and I saw an ad that said, a world renowned Wellness Center is looking for a doctor. And I really thought it was going to be for a spa. And I remember thinking, I remember taking it off the wall so nobody else would get it, which was not nice, but and, and I called.

 

And it was for Dr. Atkins and and I remember so at the time I was on the Atkins diet, I felt phenomenal. I ended up meeting with him, you know, interviewing, getting the job, taking the job, and I thank God for him, because he changed my life. I was really disillusioned in medicine, even at that point, just finishing up residency, I worked in the VA hospital. I moonlit at the VA, even my first few months of working with Dr. Atkins. And, you know, medicine is hard. Primary care is really difficult, and you're given literally six minutes to see a patient, and, you know, it's putting out fires, it's band-aids, it's really hard to help somebody. And so I took the job. 

 

05:44 Dr. Rani Banik 

So very early on, right out of residency, you recognized this?

 

05:48 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Well, I didn't. It was, it was pure luck. I don't I never had an inclination for going into alternative medicine. My family was not healthy. Both my parents died very young. My mom has Alzheimer's, my dad had a stroke at 62 diabetic. You know, we grew up like, not, not, you know, the typical American family with a SAD diet, standard American diet.

 

He changed everything. For me, I saw miracles on a daily basis just by changing somebody's diet. You know, it was, it was really eye opening. It was exciting. It was like, I wanted more. I was so hungry for it. And it was, it was just fun, exciting. And I worked in an incredible place. And what people don't realize about the Atkins center is that it was probably about 5% weight loss, 95% complementary and alternative medicine. People would come from all over the world with ailments that I had never even seen in residency, you know, just I remember scleroderma and and always starting with diet. And that little step made huge, huge strides for people, you know.

 

06:56 Dr. Rani Banik 

It was incredible that you had this opportunity to work with Dr. Atkins. In addition to diet, what were some of the other strategies that you use for some of these unusual conditions, or chronic conditions that people came in with?

 

07:10 Dr. Dana Cohen  

So a lot of vitamins, supplements, IV chelation. You know, even mind-body medicine.

 

07:25 Dr. Rani Banik 

We never talked about it, at least not when I went to medical school, and from what I understand, it's still not really talked about.

 

07:32 Dr. Dana Cohen 

Big thing with him was every patient that would come in would get a glucose tolerance test, you know, so a glucose and insulin tolerance test. So you're really looking at the relationship between sugar and insulin, and what your insulin does, and I think that tiny little step alone has such an impact on your entire on everything,

 

07:53 Dr. Rani Banik 

Absolutely and it's so interesting that you mentioned, the complementary strategies, like botanicals, supplements, IVs, because nowadays we are so used to this, right? In our world, this is just commonplace. But back then it was probably really not. It was cutting-edge, bordering on radical.

 

08:13 Dr. Dana Cohen  

I remember I used to fight him on, what is this IV vitamin C? What are you doing? Where are the studies? And he'd sit back, and he's like, I want you to spend the afternoon. I want you so he had a massive floor of IV drips going. He had like 25 people in a chair at any given moment, an entire floor dedicated to this. And he had a lot of cancer in his practice. I don't treat cancer, but he did a ton of cancer.

 

He's like, I want you to spend the afternoon. I want you to go down there, and I want you to talk to the patients. And I was like, okay, so I go down and this is the story I would hear time and time again. So Hi, I'm Dr. Cohen. What do you know? What are you here for? And he's like, Well, I was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer given six months to live 10 years ago, and I kept hearing the same story over and over and over again. And I was like, Oh, my God, simply incredible!

 

09:04 Dr. Rani Banik 

Yeah. And you know, this is something I come across. You know, the importance of in the traditional medical world, the importance of evidence based medicine. But then on the flip side, in the complementary alternative world, not every treatment has a study behind it, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't work, right? So it's, it's kind of like a balance between the two, like you have to take some science and then translate that into what you think is going to be best for the patient, even though there may not be a huge, multi-centered, randomized trial behind it, right?

 

09:38 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Well, apparently, there were a lot of studies about high dose vitamins and cancer.

 

09:43 Dr. Rani Banik 

Sorry, I take that back then...

 

09:46 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Nobody acknowledged it, or nobody talked about it. So, yeah, but there's definitely some things. I mean, we also have to accept the you know, whatever I don't know, millions of years of you. Knowledge behind acupuncture, for example, you know, or or indigenous treatments, and their knowledge of what they've done. We have to embrace that in many ways, like we can't poo, poo it.

 

10:13 Dr. Rani Banik 

Yeah, no, that's definitely my philosophy. If you don't just kind of minimize it, you know, really try to understand what the patient's going through, and listen to what their wants and needs are. And I have some patients who, for example, glaucoma is a very common eye condition, and a lot of people just say, I don't want to take the drops. You know, the standard of care is, do most patients take drops for glaucoma? And I tell them like, you do need to take the drops. But in addition to that, you can also do these things in addition. So it's not a substitute necessarily, but it's an add on. It's complementary to what you're already doing, what your traditional doctors already told you. 

 

10:55 Dr. Dana Cohen  

So, I think about cholesterol, it's such a huge problem. You know, statins? Do I take a statin? I think what people don't realize is that first line therapy, and this is in the books, is always, lifestyle changes, always. And where did doctors forget that? You know? How did it become I'm gonna, you know, because it's easy. It's easy to write a prescription. And I can't blame them. When you're in a field and you're given five minutes to see a patient, you know, eight minutes to see right? 

 

11:20 Dr. Rani Banik 

It's a Quick Fix. It takes, you know, 10 minutes to talk to the patient about those dietary lifestyle changes, versus two seconds to write a prescription, right? So that's unfortunate, but All right. Well, thank you for sharing your story. 

 

I know you have done a lot of work in hydration, and you've written this amazing book called Quench. I love this book, everybody. You should check it out. This is Dr. Cohen's first book. How did you become so interested in hydration and the science behind water? I'm curious to hear that story.

 

12:00 Dr. Dana Cohen  

So first, let me take even a step back as an integrative, complimentary doctor. I've always known that you need to have a book to have a platform. I've really felt, you know, seeing Dr. Atkins and all of my mentors and peers like you need a book. And so I've searched, for years, years and years. What am I going to write my book on? I'm not going to write another book on hormones, I felt like I didn't have a lot more to say. Where you have to go see your doctor, get Bloods and get prescribed hormones, or even thyroid although I was probably mistaken, there's still so much to be said about both of those things. But it wasn't I just wasn't feeling it, and I couldn't figure out what my book.

 

My co author, Gina Bria, one day, called me up and she said, I'm with this organization called the Hydration Foundation, and I got your name from a from a mutual friend, and I'd love to come in and talk to you about it. I'm thinking, Oh, she's going to sell me, you know, some Ponzi scheme, water purifier thing. And I said, sure, because I respected the mutual friend, so she comes in, sat down, brings me a smoothie and and sits down and proceeds to tell me about the work that she's doing...

 

and that she knows about this work of Dr. Gerald Pollack, who's like the world's premier water researcher, has discovered that there's another phase of water at University of Washington in Seattle, and she blows my mind, completely blows my mind. So I just said he discovered another phase of water, so that that, in and of itself, at the time, was mind blowing. We know that water exists as liquid, ice, and vapor. We've learned that since we were kids. He's telling us that there's another phase. It goes through another phase, and that's, you know, the fourth phase of water. It's, you know, it's really interesting. 

 

And it turns out that that 's his belief, and many other people's beliefs, that that's how water exists in our cells, and that's how water exists in nature.

 

13:59 Dr. Rani Banik 

And so does it have a name?

 

14:01 Dr. Dana Cohen

By the way, that fourth phase of water, he has many names. He calls it EZ water. It stands for exclusionary zone. I think most people may know it as structured water or gel water. Fourth phase of water, there's, there's. It goes by a lot of different names, people you know, and water researchers what? What most water researchers agree upon is that there are other phases of water, a phase of water, phases of water but they don't necessarily all agree like there's no way to sort of know exactly what that is. But his theory is, it's beautiful. It lays out beautifully. It makes so much sense, and it's fascinating to read.

 

14:45 Dr. Rani Banik 

So is this phase between the liquid phase and then the ice phase? 

 

14:52 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Probably it's somewhere in between there. Yeah. So think about, you know, the ways, and there are ways to measure it, according to Dr. Pollock. So. So it has to do with how the H2o first of all, the simplest molecule in the world, which turns out to be one of the most complex molecules in the world, which I didn't know what I was getting into when I said to Gina, do you want to write this book? Because I've been searching for a book. I know how important, you know, hydration and food is, because that's what I focus on. But this is a whole different you know thing. So it turns out that that H2O molecule is way more complicated than I ever imagined, but it's so structured water has to and easy water has to do with how those molecules, those h2 all molecules, how they layer upon each other. In that layering, they start to share electrons.

 

And so when it's in that phase and it's active, he calls it H302, so it actually takes on a little bit of a different chemical composition, and, and, and it's in that phase that think about. It's believed when you go near a waterfall, you feel the energy. It's so energized that that waterfall is loaded with this structured water. Think about things like at the beach. You know that water early on in the beach is very structured and energized. And then I think the easiest way to really think about it is to think about how desert plants hydrate. 

 

You open up an aloe leaf or a cactus leaf, and literally, this gel falls out. Now, that's not just h, 2o in there, there are other, you know, there's other fiber and things in there, collagen and whatever it is, but that is loaded with this structured water, so it's a little different texture. Think about cucumber seeds that gel on cucumber seeds. So it's believed that in water in vegetables, that water that's locked in vegetables or plants is how water is in that other phase of water, mostly in that other phase of water.

 

16:58 Dr. Rani Banik 

And you mentioned you think better. It's hypothesized that that same phase is what is within ourselves.

 

17:06 Dr. Rani Banik 

Yes, and yes, cellularly as well. 

 

17:09 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Or we don't know we believe, we believe in, you know, but it's yeah, when it starts to get into the cell, it is, it is a little more structured. And so we take that and run with it in the book. And it turns out to be a very simple message. By the way, everything that I'm saying ends up to be a really simple message. And it was published about five years ago, and the amount of letters that I got that this book has changed my life is overwhelming, but but the truth is, it's so it is so beautiful, because all it is is learning how to hydrate better, eating more plants, eating more drinking more water, hydrating better. It's a simple message like but sometimes people need something that is structured to convey that simple message, and then to make it into into a habit. 

 

17:58 Dr. Rani Banik 

I think that's really the key. Is, we've all heard, yeah, you need to hydrate more, stay hydrated, etc. But when you give people the plan, the steps, this is what you can do, and then you have these amazing recipes in the book as well. 

 

18:18 Dr. Dana Cohen  

So, and I'm going to give you them at the end of this, this I'll give, I'll give all.

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18:23 Dr. Rani Banik 

Awesome, excellent, excellent!

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You've been listening to The Eye-Q Podcast™ with me. Dr. Rani Banik, we're going to take a short break, and then we'll be right back With more insights to help you raise your 'Eye-Q'.

 

So there are a couple of eye conditions that, in my experience, are linked to poor hydration, or dehydration status. They include conditions like dry eye, also migraine with aura. Many patients who develop migraines with aura tend to be very, very dehydrated. 

 

And then also, there is this. It's pretty rare, but there's this type of stroke to the optic nerve, called, it's a long name, but non arteritic, anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. It's for sure. It's called NAION in my patients, I've definitely been. Note that many of my patients who develop this type of optic nerve stroke have been dehydrated right before their vascular event happened. So it is really, really important, from an eye and brain standpoint, to stay very well hydrated. So now I'm going to ask you, Dr. Dana, for some of your best tips, like, if you could give us your top three tips on how to best stay hydrated for our brain health and our eye health. And we would be really, really grateful. 

 

20:26 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Great, easy. And that's the beauty of this. It's really easy. Except I'm just going to say one thing. You know, with food and dietary changes, I subscribe to the give me 80/20 will give me 80% and I'm happy with hydration. You have to stay on top of it. Day by day, every single day, you have to stay on top of it, because we can very easily lose 2% of our of our hydration very easily, and that happens to most of us throughout the day at some points. So it's super important, and we have to talk about, what, what, what? How do you know you're hydrated, and I'll give you that at the end too.

 

So first thing, front load your water. This is how desert people hydrate.  They don't walk around with a bottle of water. You want to, you want to, you know, front load your water. So a big glass, eight to 16 ounces. First thing in the morning, you can throw a little love at it. Love it. Throw a little you could squeeze a little lemon in there for more minerals. And you can even put a little pinch of salt and real salt in there, just to get those electrolytes, or electrolyte mix.

 

21:33 Dr. Rani Banik

Sorry to interrupt, but by salt, you mean like Himalayan sea salt, or Celtic salt, or something like that, right? Not table salt, right?

 

21:42 Dr. Dana Cohen 

You want a good, real salt that comes from nature, so it either comes from the sea or it comes from a rock salt mine, there's a brand called Real Salt that I love, and just like, if you get it, just do a little taste test between, you know, the umbrella salt and the sea salt, or any salt, even Himalayan pink salt. To do a little taste test for yourself, it tastes so much richer. And so it really makes a difference. So when you try that real salt, right? That salt is the brand, and it's great. It's from the salt lines of Utah.

 

So front load your water, super important. You want to soak those organs. I do it. You know, I usually make it the night before I sit it on my nightstand, and before my feet even hit the ground, it goes down so easily.

 

Second way to sort of, so you don't forget, is I tell people to drink a glass of water before every meal. So suck down a glass of water before your meal. This way you don't have to think about it. It's done.

 

And then the third thing, and this is a big ask, but I really recommend a green smoothie a day. 

 

22:54 Dr. Rani Banik 

So me too, yay. We're on the same page!

 

22:58 Dr. Dana Cohen  

A blended greens. So blend greens with water and then whatever else you want to put in there. If you want to put a little green, you know, apple in there, you want to put a lemon, ginger there's, there's so many recipes in the book. There's so many recipes online for smoothies. You could put protein powder in there and make it a meal. You know, however you want to do it, but you don't have to. You could just do a green smoothie at like 11 am with just blended greens, Apple and water. You know, you want to blend it.

 

I don't do juicing. There's a place for juicing, but this is not what we're talking about. We want to blend the greens because you want the fiber. You want all that fiber and and then a little extra water so that you can do it, and then whatever else you want to put in there.

 

23:43 Dr. Rani Banik 

So, you put water with the greens. Like, okay, yeah, usually like using some kind of milk, whether it's plant milk or some other type of milk with the greens. But I haven't actually tried it with only water.

 

23:57 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Oh, yeah. I usually don't use any milks in my smoothies, because I used to. I like fruit. I love the taste of fruit. So I'll do you know, lemon, Apple, like a real basic, simple green smoothie is greens, usually spinach, kale, they're swiss chard. I definitely recommend mixing them up to, like, playing around with greens, especially now in the summer, 

 

I get a CSA. So there's all kinds of, like, weird greens that they put in there that I never heard of. And I'm like, try this one. Yeah, Google it.

 

24:32 Dr. Rani Banik 

I think it's best to rotate through them. 

 

24:35 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Yes, you want to rotate them. And greens, water, and apples. That's a real simple, simple, easy one to do. 

 

24:47 Dr. Rani Banik 

And then you know when you start adding some seeds, because I always love to add some chia seeds, or hemp seeds or flax seeds. Chia seeds also don't like to absorb some of the hydration and kind of plump up a little bit. Yeah.

 

24:59 Dr. Dana Cohen  

And flax. Are both sort of are the star of the show. Those are great to add. They really do. They carry something like 35 times their weight in water that, you know, if anybody's ever made a chia pudding, it literally becomes gelatinous, super hydrating. It holds on to that hydration better. You know, I have people that say I can't ever quench my thirst, I drink so much water and I can't quench my thirst. Just doing those things that we just said, you will notice a massive difference, because now you're holding on to the water better. You're not drinking what we call plain or bulk water, and you're peeing it out. You know, you need those electrolytes to hold on to them. You need the fiber to hold on to them. The chia seeds have a lot of fiber. It also has omega trees. Great, great thing to do. Chia seeds are fantastic unless you're sensitive to them.

 

25:49 Dr. Rani Banik 

Awesome. Okay, well, thank you for those three great tips again. Number one, front, load your water right. Number two, drink a glass of water before every meal. And number three, have your green smoothie every day? 

 

Now I wanted to ask you, you know, in terms of total body hydration, most of us probably heard many times, like, drink eight glasses a day, like, that's, that's a good, you know, target. But that's not always true for everyone, right? Isn't it? Based on other factors, like, how do you determine each person's unique hydration needs? Is there a formula that you use? 

 

26:23 Dr. Dana Cohen  

So great question. Because how can you say a 5'2" sedentary person needs eight glasses versus a 6'4" sweaty athlete, it doesn't make any sense. It literally doesn't come from anywhere. So while it may work for many people, um, there's one thing I'm going to say, and I think this is where I think is so important.

 

The best measure to know that you are truly hydrated is your urine output, right? So we are meant to urinate every two or three hours while waking so if you're not getting up to pee every two or three hours. You're not hydrated.

 

27:02 Dr. Rani Banik 

That's interesting. Okay, I didn't know it was that frequent, every two to three hours?

 

27:06 Dr. Dana Cohen  

I mean, I know there are days that I sat at my desk eight hours straight, never got up once, and I'm like, oh my god, what am I doing? 

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27:16 Dr. Rani Banik 

I think we all do that. I think we all get caught up in life and we forget to drink, and we forget to go to the bathroom, or even worse, we purposely do it so we don't have to be interrupted. 

 

27:25 Dr. Dana Cohen  

We stop drinking because we're going on a long car ride, you know, when, in reality, it's important to get up and move, you know? And it's important. So I often say, use this if you're on a plane and you have to interrupt the person next to you to go pee like you're actually doing them a big favor by getting up and doing so, yeah, so that's, that's the best thing.

 

If you twisted my arm and you needed a number, I need to know how much water to drink. I have to know then the best, a better, better bet, is half your weight in ounces. So if you're, you know, a 150 pound person, you need 75 ounces of water.

 

But it's also depends what if you're on a ketogenic diet, if you're on a ketogenic diet, it's a pretty dehydrating diet. You're, it's a diuretic. We know that might even be 75% of your weight in ounces, if it's something like that. So it's not the best way to look at it. And then the other things we did talk, you know, the book was written a while ago.

 

We talked about looking at the color of your urine as being a marker. I, you know, I don't know if that. I think that works for some people, but it doesn't work for everybody.

 

28:47 Dr. Rani Banik 

Like you can have a pretty orange obviously, if you're taking B vitamins, your urine is going to be very orangey colored or very conscious you have certain foods also, like beets, for example, will turn your urine red, so it's always the best indicator marker wanted a light straw colored is what you're striving for.

 

28:54 Dr. Dana Cohen  

But I just want to say something to people, people strive, which I learned over these years for clear colored urine. I'm not sure that's the best thing either. You know, you don't necessarily want your urine to be clear.

 

29:10 Dr. Rani Banik 

Peeing out too over hydrated, because seeing it that that can happen right water toxicity,

 

29:14 Dr. Dana Cohen  

I see it all once a week, at least in my practice, where somebody's sodium and chloride is too low, because they're being electrolytes. And I ask them how much water they drink? I drink so much water. I'm so proud of myself. Well, you know, we got to, you got to add some electrolytes. You got to slow that down a little bit. How do they change the way they're doing it?

 

And then the overt, you know, water toxicity, which is quite rare. It happens, though, it just recently happened to Brooke Shields. It was big news. She was preparing for an Off Broadway cabaret, drinking, drinking, drinking, because she's singing and she's talking, and she literally had a seizure from overhead.

 

29:54 Dr. Rani Banik 

Oh my goodness, wow! I did not hear about that. Very scary, very scary. So drink in moderation, right?​

 

30:06 Dr. Dana Cohen   

It's more about eating your water, you know, and it's just looking at your urine output. There are some people that need one glass of water a day, but they're eating tons of salads and smoothies and, you know, they're they're doing that kind of thing. And, you know, that's not everybody, but there are some people that thought that's all they need, and then there's people that need more water. So it really is so individualized. And you know, it's just important for you to know your body and stop being cut off from our bodies. Live in our bodies. Are you?

 

Earlier you mentioned, ocular migraines. But what about headaches? You know, just plain headaches. We know that the number one reason. 

 

30:48 Dr. Rani Banik  

And I can't tell you how many times I've heard from patients that they exercise, they go to the gym, they have this intense workout, and boom, they get that headache, they get that migraine. And even though they think they're hydrating enough, in reality, they're not. And so that's a clear cut indicator that you need to yeah up your hydration and electrolyte intake.

 

31:10 Dr. Dana Cohen  

I always tell people to before you start on any, any diet, any supplement regimen, any regimen you must start here, because you have to start with hydration, let alone for the for the headaches and whatever. But our body requires it for detoxification, for movement? You know, our joints are literally lubricated from hydration, our brains, you know, everything you have to always learn. And it's easy one day is all it takes. Learn it in one day. Yeah,

 

31:41 Dr. Rani Banik   

And then make it a habit, yeah. So you mentioned some hydrating foods. So in your mind, in your opinion, what are the top five hydrating foods that are your go-tos?

 

31:55 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Watermelon comes to my mind. I'm so happy. It's watermelon season. I love watermelon. I always tell people to, like, go on this new kick to make sure you eat some of the white the pith of the watermelon. That's where all the nutrients are, too. So it's not taste as sweet. But if, especially if you're gonna make a smoothie, like, try to really get as close to the rind as possible, get some of that white in there. 

 

32:19 Dr. Rani Banik   

More fiber in that part of the watermelon. 

 

32:22 Dr. Dana Cohen   

And that's that goes for everything. You know, the nutrients are always right before, you know the sort of what people tend to throw away strawberry tops, you know, the greens or strawberries. There's a lot of nutrients in those. They don't taste like anything. Eat the whole thing. Why do we throw away the top?

 

32:39 Dr. Rani Banik   

interesting. I had no idea, no idea.

 

32:45 Dr. Dana Cohen   

The other thing I was going to say, so top hydrating foods. I mean, it's simple, it's vegetables, it's fruits, it's plants, you know. So any kind of plants, those are, those are the real sort of stars of the show. Cucumbers are super hydrating. 

 

33:00 Dr. Rani Banik   

So again, if you're eating enough of those foods, and you're urinating, like every two to three hours, and your urine is a good color, the light yellow straw color, then you may not have, not have to drink those eight glasses a day, or not even, you know, six glasses a day. It just depends on, on your habits, right? 

 

33:16 Dr. Dana Cohen   

And by the way, we're learning coffee counts, okay, all right,

 

33:24 Dr. Rani Banik   

Also does tea?

 

33:26 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Coffee and tea count under a certain amount of caffeine? So, you know, four cups of coffee, whatever the equivalent for caffeine, and it depends on where it was, at Starbucks or whatever. But there's a, there's a cut off on the caffeine that before that it becomes after that, it becomes a diuretic. So a few cups of coffee a day is good for you, and I usually recommend,

 

33:50 Dr. Rani Banik  

I don't know if this is the same number as the diuretic number, but under 200 milligrams a day is typically I recommend for prevention of migraine, anything above that people can actually have worsened symptoms.

 

34:04 Dr. Dana Cohen   

Look up that number too. Honestly, if I had 200 milligrams of caffeine, I would be a wreck, though, too. So people also have to take that into account, like is a drug. 

 

34:13 Dr. Rani Banik 

Also based on your genetics, like people metabolize caffeine differently.

 

34:18 Dr. Dana Cohen   

Yeah, yeah.

 

34:20 Dr. Rani Banik   

Dr. Dana, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom. I know you have some exciting news coming up. So you want to share with us what that what's going on in your world.

 

34:31 Dr. Dana Cohen   

My next book is coming out in September. I have a new co author, Colin Sapphire. He invented the beast blender. So check that out. And and it's, another very simple message, but empowering and and what's the word I'm looking for just will really make a difference.

 

And it's about how to get ultra processed foods out of your diet, how to up level your nutrition every step of the way. Think you know, using the blender and. And there's a lot of science behind that. You know, where we can, where we fit it in, but it, but it's an easy read with lots of stories and fun read much like Quench.

 

35:17 Dr. Rani Banik   

What is your title? Can you share the title? 

 

35:22 Dr. Dana Cohen   

Fuel Up. Yeah. And I think soon it'll, I'll start to post about it, because it can be pre-ordered on Amazon now.

 

35:30 Dr. Rani Banik  

Wonderful, wonderful. So everyone who's listening Quench first of all, that's already out there and then Fuel Up is Dr. Cohen's Linna, newest book. So how can, how can listeners get in touch with you? How can they follow you and learn more about what you're doing?

 

35:47 Dr. Dana Cohen  

Probably start with my website, so it's DrDanaCohen.com and then you can follow me on Instagram from there and Facebook.

 

35:52 Dr. Rani Banik   

Okay, wonderful! And you mentioned that you had some recipes to share, so we'll put those that link in the show notes as well, so you can access those amazing smoothie recipes.

 

Well, our time has already come to an end. We've had such an amazing conversation. I learned so much every time I talk to you, Dana, I learned so much so thank you so. Thank you so much for joining us, everyone, and I will see you at the next Eye-Q Podcast™!

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36:26 Narrator   

Thank you for tuning into The Eye-Q Podcast™. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something new to help elevate your 'Eye-Q'  if you loved what you heard, don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review and share the podcast with your friends. Stay connected with Dr. Rani Banik for more eye opening insights on eye health, nutrition and lifestyle until next time, keep your vision clear and your 'Eye-Q' sharp!