Every year, thousands of people land in the hospital for a common problem. It’s the leading cause of death in children worldwide, and the next biggest population is older adults. My mother was one of them.

She was in her 80s when she had to go to the hospital following a bout of diarrhea. There, doctors gave her intravenous rehydration fluids. And, in a few days, she was able to come home. Although she had been drinking lots of fluids, she had still become dehydrated.

If only I had known then what I know now, she may have avoided the trip to the hospital. The juice of a nut could have prevented her dehydration.

You may remember hearing that thousands of seniors died throughout Europe in 2003 during a severe heat wave. They died of dehydration. Dehydration is very common as we get older. We often have difficulty staying hydrated for several reasons. For one, our bodies absorb and retain fluids less efficiently than when we were younger. We also tend to not be as sensitive to thirst. And we can’t respond to temperature changes the way we used to.

Still, dehydration is not just an age-related problem. You can get dehydrated at any age from exercising or gardening on a hot day. Or from a bacterial infection or colitis, as well as from vomiting or a high fever. Even medications like Tylenol, aspirin, and ibuprofen can cause dehydration. In fact, there are dozens of ways you can become dehydrated. Fortunately, there’s a simple inexpensive solution found in a nut.

It’s the juice of young coconuts called coconut water. Not canned coconut milk used in creamed soups and curries, but coconut water. Once known primarily to Pacific Islanders, coconut water is now gaining in popularity in this country due to its many benefits. You can find cans of it in health food stores and Asian markets across the country. It’s so effective at preventing and treating dehydration that I think we should all have several cans of it on hand for an emergency.

Why not just drink more water? Drinking plenty of purified water can be helpful. But water is often insufficient for moderate to severe dehydration. Other beverages are not necessarily the answer, either. Caffeinated drinks, for instance, can temporarily increase dehydration. Fruit juices and sodas frequently increase diarrhea. Of all the beverages, to reverse dehydration, coconut water tops my list.

Coconut water is unlike any other food found in nature. Its chemical composition is so similar to that of human blood plasma that doctors can use the water right from young coconuts as an IV solution. The electrolytes in both are essentially the same. If the coconut water is fresh, it doesn’t contain any harmful bacteria or fungi. So your doctor can inject it right into the bloodstream to prevent dehydration. But you can also drink it to prevent dehydration.

The Japanese and British doctors knew this 70 years ago. They used coconut water as a replacement for human blood plasma during World War II. More recently, it prevented dehydration in numerous people trapped by the Indonesian tsunami who had no access to fresh water. Without coconut water, many would have died.

Improving fluid retention

Two decades ago, researchers in India followed people with dehydration caused by diarrhea. In the study, they compared coconut water with the standard oral rehydration salt (ORS) solution. The coconut water retained fluids considerably better than the ORS solution.

Other clinical and published studies have repeated these results. While the chemical composition of ORS solutions is not identical to that found in coconut water, the two are similar enough to be interchangeable. In most cases, coconut water outperformed ORS.

What it comes down to is this: Drinking coconut water or taking it intravenously is as good as, or more effective than, other forms of hydration. Just make sure you’re using coconut water and not coconut milk.

Coconut water is not coconut milk

Coconut water is the nutrient-rich food from the immature coconut. The younger the coconut, the thinner its shell and the more coconut water it contains. The water is also higher in nutrients than the meat.

Coconut milk, on the other hand, is a white liquid made when you crush dried coconut meat. It has fewer beneficial nutrients than the water. Coconut water looks like cloudy water and has a milder, sweeter taste.

Purists may choose to buy young coconuts and open them with an ax or machete. This looks easy if you’re skilled, but I’m not. I buy cans of coconut water by the case and it works (and tastes) just fine. Just make sure it doesn’t contain any added sugar. A few brands do.

For more information on this miracle drink with fascinating stories and studies on the many applications of coconut water, get a copy of Coconut Water for Health and Healing by naturopath Bruce Fife (Piccadilly Books, 2008).

Make Sure You Get Enough of This Mineral. It Makes Calcium More Effective

Last month, I explained how calcium can be harmful if you don’t get enough magnesium along with it. And although most doctors recommend it, twice as much calcium as magnesium is the wrong balance. So is taking 1,500 mg of calcium. The truth is most women in the U.S. have their calcium and magnesium intake way out of balance. As a result, our osteoporosis rates are skyrocketing.

In this issue, I’m going to show you how to get your body back in balance. And I’m going to show you how much calcium and magnesium you should take each day.

The reason most women are out of balance is because their magnesium levels are very low. And the reason we’re low might surprise you.

Our national obsession with weight is at least partially responsible for much of our magnesium deficiency. Many women boosted their diet with fat-free dairy products, including milk and yogurt.

This sounds like a good idea. But it’s not. Increasing your intake of dairy will almost always upset your body’s balance of calcium and magnesium. Here’s why:

Dairy products contain nine times as much calcium as magnesium. If you’ve been eating a lot of dairy, with few or no whole grains and beans (which are rich in magnesium), you have upset your calcium/magnesium ratio even further.

What’s worse, the high protein content of dairy, especially when added to other high protein animal products, can pull calcium out of your bones.

Because we’ve eaten so much dairy and so few grains and beans, our bodies have come to need as much magnesium as calcium — or even more magnesium.

Let me give you an example of the magnitude of this problem. You would have to eat three cups of brown rice every day to compensate for the calcium in one small serving of yogurt. Since white rice has most of its magnesium removed, you would need to eat 10 cups of rice to balance one portion of a calcium-rich food.

How to restore your balance

To restore your balance, begin by increasing your consumption of whole grains and beans, which are naturally high in magnesium. These include brown rice, millet, buckwheat, and quinoa, garbanzos, black beans, lentils, split peas, and edamame (green soy beans).

Reduce your consumption of refined sugar and alcohol to prevent the excretion of magnesium in your urine. And take a good look at how much dairy you eat daily. Limit it to one serving a day.

Keep your total animal protein intake low. A diet high in phosphorous — a mineral found in animal protein — can cause your magnesium levels to be too low. Vegetable protein (grains with beans) helps maintain calcium levels.

If you’ve been taking calcium and magnesium supplements containing more calcium than magnesium, stop taking them. You most likely need less calcium and more magnesium.

Just how much magnesium?

According to the late Dr. Mildred Seelig, one of the world’s foremost authorities on magnesium, adults on a good diet should take between 700 and 800 mg of magnesium supplements each day. This is considerably more than the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) of 350 mg for women of all ages.

What it comes down to is that the more calcium you get, the more magnesium you need. Guy E Abraham, MD, a research gynecologist and endocrinologist in Torrance, California, proved this. He gave postmenopausal women 200 to 1,000 mg of magnesium a day to strengthen their bones. Each woman took magnesium to bowel tolerance — enough to cause soft stools, but not diarrhea. These women showed an average increase in bone density of 11% in one year! This is more than any osteoporosis drug.

Can you take too much magnesium? It’s unlikely, says Melvyn R Werbach, MD, author of Nutritional Influences on Illness, a reference book for doctors and integrative health practitioners. His extensive research has not found any side effects — other than loose stools — from amounts totaling 1,000 mg in supplement form.

The only blood test that accurately measures magnesium is Red Blood Cell (RBC) magnesium. Not all labs perform this test, and it tends to be expensive — more than $100. Magnesium, on the other hand, is cheap and safe. For this reason,

I suggest you take magnesium to bowel tolerance. Take any form of magnesium except magnesium oxide, which tends to be irritating.

My suggestion is to take just 500 mg each of calcium and magnesium in supplements, like you can find in Healthy Resolve (800-791-3395) and get the rest from your diet. Dietary calcium is much better absorbed than calcium pills. Eat a diet rich in magnesium and then take additional magnesium supplementation if needed.

It doesn’t surprise me to see that many people with a magnesium deficiency are also constipated. Increasing magnesium solves multiple problems at once. For many women, getting sufficient magnesium is the missing link to reducing the risks of osteoporosis, heart disease, and arthritis, as well as eliminating many symptoms of PMS.

What You Can Take Instead of This Dangerous Painkiller

We hear about the dangers of various prescription and over-the-counter drugs almost on a daily basis. In fact, they’re in the news so often that many people don’t pay attention to the warnings any more. You may have missed hearing about acetaminophen, which new research says is unsafe. In case you’re still using it, I want to make sure that you know it’s not safe — and there are safe alternatives.

The problem with many common painkillers

Vicodin, Percocet, and codeine are just three prescription painkillers that contain acetaminophen. And acetaminophen is more dangerous than most people realize. These drugs account for nearly half of the annual cases of acetaminophen-related liver failure in this country. Many of these people need liver transplants. Some of them die. Tylenol is the best-known form of acetaminophen in an over-the-counter (OTC) drug. It’s also an ingredient in Nyquil, TheraFlu, Benadryl, and a host of other medications.

The FDA’s position is that the risk of liver injury is greatest when you take more than 4,000 mg daily in multiple products. The problem is if you take several over-the-counter products to reduce a fever and for pain, you may not realize how much acetaminophen you’re taking. And as you may know, some people are much more sensitive to various drugs than others. A much smaller amount could be harmful to you.

The FDA knows this. It’s proposing that prescription drugs contain a warning about the possibility of severe liver injury and be labeled that they include acetaminophen. But right now you’re on your own to figure out how much is in your medications and what you should take for pain.

Your neighborhood pharmacist can help you identify which of your medications contain acetaminophen and how much. But I’d rather see you avoid the drugs altogether.

Let me give you an example to show why

I had just undergone major dental surgery when my oral surgeon handed me a prescription for 500 mg of Vicodin. He expected me to have considerable pain and wanted me to be able to sleep well for the next few nights. After I filled the prescription and the anesthesia was beginning to wear off, I remembered that the FDA had issued a warning to manufacturers of prescription painkillers. It asked the drug makers to limit their dosage of acetaminophen to 325 mg per tablet. More than that increased the risk for severe liver damage.

Now, long-term use is more dangerous than taking these painkillers for just a few days. But the bottom line is that they can be harmful if your liver is not healthy or if you’re particularly sensitive to them.

My prescription indicated that I could take one tablet every four to six hours, or 2,000 mg a day. No one had asked me about my past use of these medications or the condition of my liver. Here I was, holding a bottle of Vicodin and I began to feel the anesthesia wear off and the pain start. I knew I wanted a safer option. Fortunately, I knew about an ancient therapy that may eliminate your pain safer than any drug.

An ancient, safe solution

There are numerous causes for pain and dozens of safe solutions for each. I’ve found homeopathic remedies to be particularly effective, and their adverse effects are rare and mild. Homeopathy is a natural therapy that uses minute doses of plant, mineral, or animal substances to stimulate your body’s natural defenses. It is, essentially, a form of energy medicine based on the premise that like cures like. This is called the Law of Similars.

If this sounds too “woo woo” to you, you should know that the British royal family uses a homeopathic physician as well as traditional medical doctors.
The key to using homeopathic remedies for pain is in choosing the right remedy. This can be complex, requiring a skilled homeopathic practitioner. However, there is a single remedy I’ve used successfully for decades and it works every form of pain I’ve tried it on. It’s the homeopath Arnica montana.

When the anesthesia began to wear off, the pain increased significantly. So I put a dose of Arnica in my mouth and let the tiny pellets dissolve. The beginning pain dissolved as well. I followed the Arnica with Hypericum, which is good for nerve pain. The combination worked. I didn’t need even an aspirin ... much less acetaminophen!

Different sources of pain call for different homeopathics. You may want to begin slowly by learning which remedies are best for your source of pain. Before you reach for a bottle of Tylenol or Vicodin, I suggest you read about homeopathy. You can find articles on my website, on the Internet, and in books like Essential Homeopathy by Dana Ullman, MPH (New World Library, 2002). In fact, you can trust and easily understand any book by Dana.

As I’ve learned about homeopathy, my medicine chest has grown to include common remedies for pain. Here are a few safe ones to try.

• Arnica for sprains, strains, and pain from tooth extraction and dental surgery.
• Hypericum for nerve pain and puncture wounds
• Apis or Ledum for spider bites and bee stings
• Rhus tox for arthritis pain
• Magnesium phos for cramping in calves

You can find more information on other remedies in Dana’s books. If you need more specific information, see a trained homeopath if at all possible. It’s well worth the cost of an evaluation to learn which remedies are best for you. You can find these remedies (choose 6x or 30C potency) in most health food stores.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/213662.php.

NUTRITION DETECTIVE

How to Make Mushrooms Even Healthier

You probably have heard all the news about vitamin D. It can protect you from the flu. It can make your bones stronger. And it can help your heart stay healthy. In fact, you probably heard most of these stories from this newsletter, as I was way ahead of the curve on this nutrient.

If you’re deficient in vitamin D, it could increase your risk for these and dozens of other diseases. That’s why I still advocate getting a blood test. You need to know if you’re one of the majority of folks who would benefit from getting more of this vitamin/hormone. But it’s safe to say that increasing your intake of dietary vitamin D is a smart idea for all of us.

The problem is few foods naturally contain vitamin D. Yes, there’s fish oil and a few fortified foods. But not much else — except mushrooms. Mushrooms are very high in D.

Now that may surprise you to learn that mushrooms are so high in vitamin D since they usually grow in the shade. But they are rich in this essential nutrient. And here’s a secret — you can easily increase their vitamin D content. All you have to do is expose your mushrooms to sunlight. When you do, they become higher in this nutrient. Here’s why.

Mushrooms contain the plant sterol ergosterol. Ergosterol makes vitamin D from exposure to sunlight much like we do. We use sunlight to make the highly absorbable vitamin D3, while mushrooms use sunlight to make vitamin D2. Still, even though it’s not the most absorbable kind, the amount of vitamin D in mushrooms can help boost your levels.

Button mushrooms, criminis, and portabellas all convert UV-B rays into vitamin D2. And mushroom growers know this. So don’t be surprised if you see sunlight-exposed mushrooms in your supermarket before long. Many stores already sell them. I expect to see more of them in the produce section of supermarkets. When I do, I’ll certainly use them regularly. By the way, one sunlight-exposed portabella has nearly 400 IU of vitamin D.

Until you find them in your store, consider exposing your mushrooms to the sun for an hour or more before you add them to your meals.

LETTERS

Q: I have difficulty swallowing large, solid pills, even when I drink more water. I still feel a lump in my throat and am not sure whether it has gone down or not. Some supplements are not available in smaller pills or capsules. What do you suggest? — E.A., via e-mail

A: Some people have difficulty swallowing large pills and some can’t even swallow small ones. But out of the thousands of people who buy nutritional supplements, only a few find it difficult to swallow pills. For these few, it’s usually a psychological problem, not a physiological one. When you swallow a mouthful of chewed food you’re swallowing a larger bolus than any pill. I have two suggestions for you.

The first one is to chew some food as usual and then place a tablet in your mouth and swallow the pill with your food. To get used to this, begin with a small tablet or capsule and work your way up to a larger one. I have been using this technique for years and now swallow five to six pills with one mouthful of chewed food!

If this doesn’t work, one or two sessions with a hypnotherapist should. I’ve recommended this to my patients with this problem and have seen a lot of success with it.

I know that some people believe that tablets are more difficult to digest than powder or capsules. But studies show this is not the case.

If the tablets are good quality, like those I talk about, they break down easily and are well absorbed. In fact, they can be manufactured to dissolve at different rates to bring you nutrients in a specific order.

Q: I noticed that your digestive formula contains chromium picolinate. One source I read says that this causes DNA to shatter and that we should use only GTF chromium. What do you say? — JKR, e-mail

A: This is an example of how you can find studies to prove both sides of an issue. There have been numerous studies that contradict the one you mention. The manufacturer of chromium picolinate, Nutrition 21, has researched this issue and has substantial safety documentation on this ingredient. Some of the information on their website specifically addresses this question.

I suggest you go to www.nutrition21.com and decide for yourself whether or not chromium picolinate is safe. I believe it is, which is the only reason why I allowed it into Integrative Digestive Formula (IDF).

I should note that studies concluding the safety of chromium picolinate go back as far as 1975. And researchers have scrutinized them carefully.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) looked closely at this issue and concluded that “Numerous investigations have established that chromium is one of the least toxic trace elements, and in vivo mammalian studies support the safety of chromium picolinate.”