Oral rehydration therapy

This is the part I want to get right, because it's clever physiology.

Oral rehydration solution, ORS, works because of something called glucose, sodium co-transport.

The gut has a transport mechanism where glucose and sodium are absorbed together and water follows the sodium.

So when you give a solution with the right balance of glucose and sodium, the water gets pulled into the body much more efficiently than if you gave plain water.

Sports drinks have too much sugar and not enough sodium, so they can actually make diarrhea worse by pulling water into the gut.

Juice is the same problem.

ORS is engineered to hit the sweet spot.

And if you don't have commercial ORS on hand, there's a rough homemade approximation.

And the treatment is almost absurdly simple.

Oral rehydration solution.

Salt, sugar, clean water.

The discovery that glucose helps the intestine absorb sodium and water was one of the great medical breakthroughs of the 20th century.

The cell can't stop pumping.

The person can drink water, and it just pours out the other end.

Which is why oral rehydration solution is such a precise intervention.

It's not just water.