Alkaline water is water with a pH higher than 7.0
The pH of water is the difference between how much hydrogen (h+) water has vs. how much hydroxyl (oh-) water has. Water is H+OH- or H2O. If you add minerals with more H than OH the pH goes down. If you add minerals with OH- then pH goes up. An equal amount of H+ and OH- will give you a 7 pH. When water has more OH in it then it is alkaline. Water with less then 7 pH is acidic.
Most city tap water in the U.S and other countries is alkalized (OH added) to raise the pH to about 8.5 on average. This is because low pH water tends to dissolve things like concrete drain pipes and copper piping; while high pH tends to form deposits which actually thickens the same pipes. The reason is that thicker pipes rupture less often but plug over time.
These expensive devices are not sold in reputable stores like Walmart, Target, Home Depot or any other retailer. If is wasn't a scam they would be selling them and so would we.
The people selling these devices seem like they belong to a cult. They have 'rah rah' parties where they pump up the crowd and fill them full of falsehoods not backed by any actual scientific evidence. Real healthcare products have gone through blind studies to scientifically prove they have the expected benefits
You know a medical product is 'snake oil' when all the salesperson can do is offer outlandish claims based on testimonials and no peer reviewed studies. People are making claims that alkaline water cures cancer, heart disease, eye problems and all sorts of diseases. The manufacturers of the device however do not make these claims.
There is not one mention of this ''Amazing Drug'' on any government medical website such as the FDA, CDC, EPA or any others. There are no clinical studies proving any of the claims made by the salespeople.
NEVER TRUST THE SALESPERSON OR WEBSITE PITCHING THE PRODUCT. WRITE THE MANUFACTURER DIRECTLY AND ASK IF THEY SUPPORT THE CLAIMS BEING MADE. IF THE SALESPERSON OR WEBSITE WONT GIVE YOU THE MANUFACTURERS CONTACT INFO TAKE THAT AS A SIGN THEY ARE PROBABLY MISINFORMED OR INTENTIONALLY LYING.
People are now pushing Alkalized water as a health product. In reality, raising the pH offers little benefit to your health.
Is drinking Alkaline Water harmful?
There is currently no evidence that it hurts to drink it, but it sure doesn’t do anything to help. Your stomach acid will neutralize the pH of the water so it really doesn’t do anything once it hits your stomach. If you were able to change your blood pH you would rapidly developMetabolic alkalosis.
Metabolic alkalosis develops when the body loses too much acid or gains too much base. For example, stomach acid is lost during periods of prolonged vomiting or when stomach acids are suctioned with a stomach tube (as is sometimes done in hospitals). In rare cases, metabolic alkalosis develops in a person who has ingested too much base from substances such as baking soda (bicarbonate of soda). In addition, metabolic alkalosis can develop when excessive loss of sodium or potassium affects the kidneys' ability to control the blood's acid-base balance. For instance, loss of potassium sufficient to cause metabolic alkalosis may result from the use of diuretics or corticosteroids.
Promoting Alkaline Water Hurts People
It hurts because the people selling Alkaline water are making false medical claims which give people false hope or makes them not look for traditional treatments. It is sold, as a food supplement so there is no regulation. It is the same way they can sell weight loss and male enhancement products that do not work. Sake oil products come along all the time. It is amazing how we are all so desperate that we tend to want to believe anything.
A search of FDA, CDC, EPA, WEBMD show no studies or information.
An FDA enforcement leter to Nutronix regarding health claims for coral (alkaline) supplements
Read Federal Trade Commision Report on MLM’s ABYSMAL NUMBERS
If a salesperson makes a medical claim about alkaline, Kangen or Ionized water, get it in writing. Only regulated drugs can make medical claims.
If you find any website or salesperson making a health claim about Alkaline, Ionized or Kangen Water you should file a complaint with FDA or the FTC for enforcement.
If they start talking about government conspiracy or 'modern medicine not knowing'. Show them the door quickly.
For those who think we expose this scam to sell our own products, let us tell you, if it worked, we would be selling it. The manufacturers are begging us to carry it, but we refuse to rip people off in the name of profit.
These devices are being sold by seemingly un-trained non professionals. They have little or no chemistry or medical knowledge and quickly retreat when challenged with any questions concerning how the body actually works. We get a lot of hate mail from them for even offering this article.
How to prove a product works
They seem to be quick to offer only ''testimonials'' which of course can not be proven and offer no evidence based on science and medicine. To test them, simply ask what happens when high pH water enters an acidic stomach that has acid pumps in it to keep the pH low?
Many people may report they have more energy after drinking this water. In actually it is the fact that they are drinking more water than they used to and are finally hydrated. Hydration does indeed have benefits. It has nothing to do with the alkalinity of the water. It has to do with drinking a proper amount of water for a change.
Alkaline Water: If You Fall for This "Water Fad" You Could Do Some Major Damage
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/11/alkaline-water-interview.aspx
Clean, pure water is a cornerstone of good health. Your body is mostly water, so the ongoing intake of water is essential to your every function.It’s common knowledge that most water sources are now polluted, but there is tremendous confusion about what kind of drinking water is the most health promoting, and what kind of home water treatment produces the best drinking water.Today, too many people are choosing soda instead of pure water as their primary beverage, and the health of an entire culture is at risk.The number one source of calories in the U.S. comes from high fructose corn syrup primarily in the form of soda. Americans drink an average of one gallon of soda each week, and this excessive fructose consumption is a driving force behind obesity and chronic degenerative disease in this country.The most practical and economical strategy to combat obesity and chronic disease is to replace all sodas and other sweet beverages with pure water.The trouble is, most public water supplies are loaded with hazardous contaminants, such as disinfection byproducts (DBPs), fluoride, andpharmaceutical drugs, to name just a few. Nevertheless, you DO need to make water your beverage of choice if you want to be healthy - but it should be purified water.But beyond water filtration, there’s also the issue of pH - alkaline versus acidic water. There are quite a few astonishing health claims being made about alkaline water, but are they true? Most of them are not.The theory behind alkaline water is, in a nutshell, that alkaline (ionized) water is a powerful antioxidant with surplus electrons that can “mop up” the dangerous free radicals you have coursing through your veins. Marketers claim alkaline water can correct excess acidity in your tissues, which can then prevent or reverse cancer, arthritis, and other degenerative diseases.[i]Above is my interview with Houston Tomasz on this topic. He's a 10-year veteran in the water filtration industry and this article expands on some of the items that we discuss in our interview. The segment is part of a much longer interview that we will air in future issues. Additionally, I have interviewed two other experts on this topic and they both agree that ionizers that produce alkaline water are not your best choice.
'Snake Oil on Tap'
When I posted a comment on my Facebook page, announcing I was interviewing Houston, I asked for questions and the most popular question by far was whether or not to drink alkaline water.Many alkaline water enthusiasts are convinced its powers are unparalleled and will vehemently defend it. I am also certain that many will post vigorous objections to my position, and that is their choice. It is also my choice and responsibility to provide information on a system that many people are relying on to provide health benefits that I feel are unjustified.
One cannot look at the alkaline value alone to determine the value of the water. While many of the best waters should be slightly alkaline, it has much more to do tha pH alone.There are a plethora of testimonials and so-called scientific studies on the Internet claiming alkaline water will cure your every ill. Many consumers, struggling to make sense of the scientific jargon, eventually throw up their hands in frustration. The reality is, most of the circulating information is distributed by clever marketers, with very little scientific validity to back up their claims.Complicating matters is the fact that most water alkalizers are being marketed by multi-level marketing (MLM) companies with less-than-stellar ethics. They sell you a very expensive machine, for which you get a good discount if you sign up as a rep, and once you're part of the MLM, you can't very well change your mind about its benefits (especially if you're going to sell the units) - even if you realize that the alkaline water is no longer "working" for you.I have been personally approached many times and encouraged to sell these systems and there would have been large revenue streams had I chosen to do so, but I would never promote anything that I would never use personally, and I can assure you that I would never use most of the machines on the market that produce alkaline water as a regular source of water.Some people experience an initial “high” when they start drinking alkaline water. This can easily be attributed to detoxification, and the fact that they are likely just becoming better hydrated.Detoxification is about the only benefit of this type of water, and this benefit is limited to very SHORT TERM USE (no more than a week or two). I will elaborate on what is known about alkaline water, but first you’ll need a basic understanding of the properties of water and a few definitions.
Types of Water Available to You
As I will review in a future interview with Houston, there are many reasons why you want to avoid drinking tap water, or as Daniel Vitalis, a raw water enthusiast, refers to it: “tap liquid.” He believes calling what flows from your unfiltered tap “water” is being overly generous, and I would have to agree. In terms of types of water, here are some basic definitions to keep in mind:
Understanding PH
The concept of the acidity or alkalinity of your body - or of water - is based on the pH scale. So it’s necessary to have a basic understanding of what pH is. PH is simply a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions. In fact, the acronym “pH” is short for “potential of hydrogen.” The higher a liquid’s pH, the fewer free hydrogen ions it has; the lower its pH, the more free hydrogen ions it has. One pH unit reflects a tenfold change in ion concentration - for example, there are ten times as many hydrogen ions available at a pH of 7 than at a pH of 8 [ii].The pH scale goes from 0 to 14, and a pH of 7 is neutral. Anything with a pH below 7 is considered acidic, with battery acid being the most extreme example, around 1. Anything with a pH above 7 is alkaline (or basic), with lye at the top of the scale, around 13. [iii] Natural water on our planet ranges in pH from 6.5 to 9.0, depending on surrounding soil and vegetation, seasonal variations and weather, and even time of day responses to sunlight. Human activities further influence the pH of our water, from the barrage of toxic industrial pollutants. According to an educational website called Water on the Web:“Pollutants in water can cause it to have higher algal and plant growth, as a result of increased temperature or excess nutrients, causing pH levels to rise. Although these small changes in pH are not likely to have a direct impact on aquatic life, they greatly influence the availability and solubility of all chemical forms in the lake and may aggravate nutrient problems. For example, a change in pH may increase the solubility of phosphorus, making it more available for plant growth and resulting in a greater long-term demand for dissolved oxygen.”Most aquatic animals and plants have adapted to life in water with a very specific pH, and will die from even slight changes. A pH below 4 or above 10 will kill most fish, and very few animals can tolerate waters with a pH below 3 or above 11 [iv]. With living systems being so sensitive to changes in pH, it should come as no surprise that YOU, as another living organism on this planet, would be sensitive to your water’s pH as well.
Guidelines for the PH of Your Drinking Water
So, what are the recommendations for optimal drinking water pH? The WHO has published a nearly-600 page document called “Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality.” [v] In this voluminous tome, you would expect to find everything you’d ever want to know about your drinking water, right? Well, everything EXCEPT a pH recommendation - there are no health-based guidelines for pH! They state that pH usually has “no direct impact on consumers,” yet they also write pH is one of the “most important operational water quality parameters.” They do recommend your water pH be in the range of 6.5 to 8.0 so as not to corrode your pipes - and they’re NOT talking about your body’s plumbing:“Alkalinity and calcium management also contribute to the stability of water and control its aggressiveness to pipe and appliance. Failure to minimize corrosion can result in the contamination of drinking water and in adverse effects on its taste and appearance. Failure to minimize corrosion can result in the contamination of drinking water and in adverse effects on its taste and appearance.”It appears that the WHO is more concerned about the pipes in your house than the pipes in your body. Most likely the optimal pH of the water you were designed to drink is somewhere between 6.5 and 8. Above or below this level may have other purposes, such as disinfection, but I would be careful drinking water outside of these ranges.
Alkalinity Research I: Flora and Fauna
Although the research is clear that highly alkaline water has detrimental effects on plants and animals, there are not many studies with humans. A review of the literature turns up a variety of anecdotal evidence about the importance of pH to various living organisms, however, and as you might expect, optimal pH varies, depending on the organism. The scientific literature indicates pH is important for nutrition and vitality. For example:
Alkalinity Research II: Humans
There has been a great deal of debate about battling cancer by making your body alkaline. This has become a focus of interest as cancer rates have skyrocketed (along with many other chronic, debilitating diseases), while our bodies have become more acidic from our processed-food diets. The scientific research about the benefits of alkalinity is by no means conclusive. PH appears to have a major influence on cell mitochondria:
Balance Is Key
As is true with many things, in the end it’s a matter of balance. Water that is too acidic or too alkaline can be detrimental to human health and lead to nutritional disequilibrium. This was demonstrated in a Swedish well water study [xv], which found both pH extremes to be problematic. Your body simply was not designed to drink highly alkaline water all the time. So I believe it’s best to be VERY careful when it comes to something as foundational as the water you drink on a daily basis. If you get it wrong, you could really cause yourself some major damage. It makes sense that you are designed to drink water that occurs naturally, which excludes alkaline water with pH levels of 8 and above.And if you drink alkaline water all the time, you’re going to raise the alkalinity of your stomach, which will buffer your stomach’s acidity and impair your ability to digest food, as low stomach acid is one of the most common causes of ulcers. This can open the door for parasites in your small intestine, and your protein digestion may suffer. It also means you’ll get less minerals and nutrients over time - in fact, some of these health effects can already be seen in hardcore alkaline water drinkers. Alkalinity is also potentially a problem because it is antibacterial, so it could potentially disrupt the balance of your body’s beneficial bacteria.[xvi]
Living Water
What you want is pure water - water that is clean, balanced, and healthful, neither too alkaline nor too acidic. Ideally, the pH of your water should be somewhere between 6 and 8. And some of the most healthful waters in the world - that which emerge from mountain springs - are actually acidic in the range of 6.5 and would absolutely be my preference if it were readily available. This mountain spring water is 'structured' in a way that is not well understood. I hope to have more information about structured water in the near future.If this is something that interests you there is a web site, FindaSpring.com, where you can find springs in your local area. That is “living water,” which is living in the same way that raw food is “living food.” One reason I am such an advocate for eating plenty of fresh, organic raw food is for its biophotons. Biophotons are the smallest units of light, which are stored in and used by all biological organisms - including you. Vital energy finds its way into your cells from the biodynamic foods you eat.In the same way that raw foods are alive with biophoton energy, natural water is “alive” in a similar way. If you really want to alkalinize your body, it would seem wise to encourage it with the highest quality water possible, which is obtained from vegetable juice. Green vegetable juices will help your body normalize your body’s pH naturally. If this is new to you and you are interested in more information, you can review my juicing manual for free. I cannot think of “living water” without thinking of the visionary work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, the Japanese researcher who experimented with the crystal forms of water. What he discovered is that different forms of energy influence water’s ability to organize into beautiful crystal forms.[xvii]He demonstrated that water crystallization depends on the natural health of the water. He found that water from natural springs, healing water sources, etc., formed beautiful and complex crystalline geometries - like snowflakes. Water that had been distilled or polluted lost its inner order, and its ability to crystallize was profoundly disturbed. You wouldn’t want to eat dead food... so why would you want to drink dead water?
Optimizing Your Body’s PH: Back to Basics
The typical American diet is loaded with sugar and processed foods, which throws off your body’s ability to optimize your pH. Although your body has mechanisms to buffer your pH, many of you are likely living in a state of low-grade acidosis from eating too many low-quality processed, devitalized food. Our ancestors had no problems with pH because they ate a pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer diet, rich in plant foods and high-quality meats, and devoid of grains. You can optimize your body’s pH by eating like your ancestors did - a diet rich in raw, organic, whole foods - and this will help your body achieve homeostasis.Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all nutrition plan that works for everyone, which is why Nutritional Typing is so helpful. Determining your nutritional type will help you narrow down the foods that are best for YOUR body’s individual chemistry. A diet that makes one person “acidic” may make another person “alkaline,” so there is no one single universal food list for perfect pH.For example,protein types can “over-alkalize” their systems by consuming too many dark green vegetables, which can worsen rather than improve their health, in spite of the many beneficial phytonutrients in leafy greens. (I am very familiar with this mistake as it’s one I made prior to understanding nutritional typing!) I want you to be aware of just how important it is to understand your body at a deeper level. Your body is a complex, multi-faceted biochemical system that is unlikely to respond well to shot-in-the-dark treatments, like alkaline water.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/11/alkaline-water-interview.aspx
Home Cleaning With Alkaline Water
Scientifically, pure water is supposed to have hydrogen content (PH) of 7. A liquid with a PH below 7 is acidic and one that has a PH above 7 is basic. As alkaline is the base, water is said to be alkaline when it has a potential for hydrogen of more than 7. This kind of water can also be termed as ionized water. It provides health benefits like neutralizing imbalances of chemicals and minerals in the body. In addition to that, ionized water can also be used for cleaning at home.
What to clean?
Carpets:Cleaning a carpet with this water will leave it absolutely clean. If you have ever taken your carpets to your local carpet cleaner, you must have noticed that they use detergents and chemicals to loosen the dirt in the fibers. In addition to that, the foam formed by the detergents is never completely eliminated from the carpet. This means some residue will always remain behind. By using ionized water, the entire residue is bound to be removed, as the molecules are slippery and so move through the carpet fibers more easily than detergents.
Clothes: According to the University of Washington, most laundry detergents contain toxic chemicals. We never know about this because such chemicals are never listed with the ingredients of the detergent. To avoid the introduction of toxic chemicals in to your clothes that might affect you in the long run, the use of ionized water is the solution. You do not have to worry about stains, be they oil, grease, coffee or soup. Without toxic chemicals, it can penetrate through the fabric easily and gently without causing any damage to the fabric.
Concrete pavements and walkways: If you have concrete pavements and walkways around your home, after a period of time they get dirty with soil, oil and grease. That means you need to have them cleaned once in a while. You may hire a local cleaner to do the job or purchase a high pressure power washer. If it is dirty with only soil, you should not have a big problem flushing it out, but if oil and grease are included then an alkaline based cleaner is what you need. This will help scrub the grease faster and more easily.
How to make ionized water?
Alkaline wateris available in various forms. One of the most ways is by the use of an Alkalizer. Using such an Alkalizer is the easiest way, because you simply put water in it and then after about five minutes, your water is ionized. The Alkalizer can also be fitted to your tap water system to simplify the process. You can also get alkaline water by adding alkaline ingredients to the water. Adding ingredients like PH drops and lemons to water is actually the cheapest way to ionize water. For lemons, one simply squeezes the juice into water, while PH drops can be bought from pharmacies. There are various types, but Alkalive's PH Booster is one of the common ones you can easily get.
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