Ionized, alkaline water has been gaining a lot of attention in recent media. Water is water, so is it all hype or is there more than meets the eye?
People drinking it regularly report what appear to be ‘health miracles’ happening, while others who haven’t tried it say its a lie, and case closed.
The Research
Research began to study how people would respond to Ionized, Alkaline water.
Step 1: Searching for Ionized water on the web.
One of the first links that came up in the search engine when searching for ionized water was a site that claims that this kind of water is pure fiction.
In reading through the site, there are many contradictions. It’s clear that as the writer attempts to debunk alkaline water, he begins to debunk his own statements.
He states “Pure water (that is, water containing no dissolved ions) is too unconductive to undergo significant electrolysis by “water ionizer” devices.”
This is a very misleading statement. The fact is that tap water, which is used by most ionizers, has minerals, or dissolved ions, in it. This is how the water gets ionized and alkalized. By negation, it’s shown that tap water can be ionized, by explaining that “pure” water can not be. The website continues about ‘Pure water’, which we now know, by the sites definition of ‘pure’ water, is not what ionizers are using. Tap water, and certain reverse osmosis waters can be ionized.
The ‘debunking site’ site continues, “The idea that one must consume alkaline water to neutralize the effects of acidic foods is ridiculous; we get rid of excess acid by exhaling carbon dioxide“
Exhaling carbon dioxide is one way to get rid of excess acid. As a matter of fact, our breathing rate increases as we exercise to get rid of acid build up quicker. However, today we are overwhelmed with acids in our foods, in our air pollution, in our stress levels.
Conditions like Gout, Metabolic Acidosis, Cancers, and Diabetes are all linked to too much acidity and reportedly improved by going on an Alkaline diet. When a person develops a process called metabolic acidosis, they have become too acidic, and it’s dangerous. Self Help Guru, Tony Robbins discusses the importance of staying alkaline here: http://www.americanaci.org/1-alkaline-ionized-water.html
The question remains whether Alkaline water can be helpful or not.
This site attempted to make statements about ionized water and lost us when they quoted Dr. Ray Kurzweil, a scientist considered the world expert in anti-aging and longevity. To summarize, the website stated at the time of this posting that Dr. Kurzweil is a brilliant and respected scientist, with the exception of his thoughts on Alkaline, ionized water being of great importance for maintaining optimal health. Dr. Kurweil thinks very highly of it, so why would he bring up someone considered to be one of the great minds of our time and just to mention he is wrong about the science of water?
What does Dr. Kurzweil have to say? Read Dr. Kurzweil’s interview here. http://www.truthfulionizerreview.com/ray-kurzweil-report.html
Practitioners in the health care field, including Medical Doctors, Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, Personal trainers, and Nutritionists are currently using ionized water for themselves and their patients. It’s difficult to know if its gaining acceptance because more health care practitioners are using it, or they are using it because it has already gained acceptance. It’s being mentioned in the media fairly often as well, such as here in this video and article from a Fox News affiliate in Miami.
Gradual recognition of people’s consistent anecdotal evidence or personal views on their health changes opened the door for our research. Today, it is difficult to find a scientific study by the for-profit industry without the funding company having input over the results. This is a reason that the FDA pulls new drugs off the market so regularly. This article discusses how statistics for drugs and vaccines are “adjusted” so it looks like the drug is effective- Medical Journal The Lancet, or The pulling of a cholesterol drug in 40 countries.
Research began by looking on the internet for different types of ionizers and reports on their effects on overall health, including specific issues, anti-aging, and athletics or exercise.
Searching for “Ionized Alkaline water” led to something intriguing. Many of the results mentioned the word ‘scam’. However, clicking the links did not mention this, it simply led to ionizer websites praising some their own product and attacking competitors.
There were no comments from anyone stating that they drank ionized water and felt it was bad for them, with the exception of a few of the lower quality brands. On the other hand, almost all of the comments testified to how people regularly drinking this kind of water were feeling better than they had in years soon after they started to drink it. Negative comments were primarily vehemently opposed to this water calling the positive comments suckers for believing this had helped their conditions.
Why are so many people claiming this water has helped them from arthritis reduction, to normalizing blood sugar, to cholesterol to better skin and digestion? These machines aren’t cheap. So why are people spending their money on it?
One ionizer was mentioned on almost every website, including the websites of other brands. The brand was singled out so the other companies could state that their product was just as good for less money. It reminded me of the marketing strategy of placing a lower priced item next to a luxury item to give it more credibility, or a person taking pictures with a celebrity to gain credibility on their blog. Car companies do the same thing.
Delving further, we learned that the machine being compared, had been and is used in the hospitals in Japan for almost 40 years for its benefits. It also happens to be a certified medical device there. Is the Japanese healthcare system on to something? We know they are number 1 in health and lifespan and are considered the healthiest country in the world. While the USA has breast cancer rates of 1 in 7, Japans rate of breast cancer is 1 in 100,000. Statistics speak kindly on their health and lifestyle choices. Their medical device was the most expensive listed, and also the machine that every other brand compared themselves too. They did not mention any other brands on their website, but simply gave a warning to be careful of lower quality ionizers.
Doctors that use or endorse this ionizer’s type of water and recommend it to their patients, include Dr. Shinya, the Creator of the Non Invasive Polypectomy, Chief of Endoscopy at Beth Israel Hospital and Board member of Albert Einstein School of Medicine. We did not get an interview with Dr. Shinya, but did speak to an ionizer representative who was willing to let us sample the water for the month as a personal case study.
Often medical literature states that if you experience something that helps you heal and science has not yet published a study on it, then you imagined it, or experienced the Placebo Effect. The Placebo Effect is the name that is given to your healing ability, when science doesn’t understand it or doesn’t want to study it.
No study was needed to know that after drinking a few glasses of this water, I felt more mental clarity and more alert. It was like coffee without the jitters or come down. It tasted lighter and cleaner than tap water, reverse osmosis, or bottled water. Apparently due to this ionizer, which is used in many of the hospitals in Japan, turning the water molecules into smaller groupings, it can penetrate the cells very easily. I drank 3 12 oz. glasses during the demonstration. I didn’t feel full or bloated like I normally would with that much water.
The Demonstration:
The next step was to find out what made the water different than tap, bottled, reverse osmosis, or filtered water.
After reading renowned scientist, Ray Kurzweil’s, report on why this water is so important for health and longevity, it was important to see it first hand. To be fair, we brought water from a reverse osmosis system and a bottle of distilled water (which I found out doesn’t remain distilled if it’s in a plastic bottle for any long period of time. It leaches whatever is in the bottle, whether its BP-A(hormone disruptor), dioxin, or other petroleum based toxins.)
Visually, the demonstration was impressive. I didn’t expect it. I learned a lot about carbonated drinks. I knew soda was not good for human consumption, and now I believe it’s dangerous, very dangerous, Soda can cause health issues. Click the links to read about it.
My waters failed the tests. I watched a test using something called an ORP meter. It’s an electric probe that tests for anti-oxidants or oxidants (free radicals) in liquid. Ray Kurzweil talks about this in his interview. I learned that a cup of soda has about 500 Free Radicals, per millivolt. That translates to drinking a carcinogen. Free radicals lead to many of the degenerative diseases.
Sports drinks, vitamin enhanced waters, and seltzer were almost as bad. Bottled waters tested slightly acidic, but the one with added fluoride for kids was very acidic. The ionized water was quite the opposite. It had about 450 Anti-Oxidants per millivolt, about 10 times the amount of anti-oxidants than vitamin C. One cup of this water could neutralize almost all the free radicals in a cup of soda. I’ve heard estimates that a cigarette has a trillion free radicals in it. For someone who smoked for years, this could be a big break through in neutralizing the poisoning that may have been caused.
The PH test. The PH test used drops of a solution that changed color based on how much acidity or alkalinity is in something. They used a clear lemon lime flavor soda that we know so well in the USA. It was a pretty spectacular demonstration. The color turned orange. That was almost as acidic as it could get. Seltzer was also orange, though not as dark. Maybe there is something to this acidic issue. If too much acid causes acidosis, acid reflux, ulcers, and all cancerous tumors are acidic, as well as 90% of kidney stones, this is a significant finding. Although soda consumption appears to be on the decline, it’s still rampant and at some point in history there is speculation that it will be listed with cigarettes, BPA in plastic bottles, and DDT. The majority of Americans have at least one health issue, and while aging used to be a factor due to oxidation and free radical accumulation to break down the body, today it is happening no matter what the age. The trend is any people go on a macrobiotic alkaline diet when they are diagnosed with a terminal type of cancer to get their bodies back to balance., so why not alkaline water?
With all of the forms of medicine from natural medicine, where we take care of ourselves so we stay healthy, to typical FDA approved drugs, I was seeing something new in our country and something, in my opinion, with a lot of possibility.
In the book, Killing Cancer, Not People, Robert Wright devoted a whole chapter to this ionized, alkaline, micro-clustered water. Onhis website, he shows this video of ersonal coach to millions and motivational speaker, Tony Robbins, explaining the importance of being alkaline. Robert Wright goes a step further and explains that after his research he would only purchase one machine, even though it may cost more. Not surprisingly, it was the same machine that I was sampling the water from that was mentioned on all the sites, as well as the one used in the hospitals in Japan.
Placebo Effect
Could it be a Placebo Effect for everyone drinking it? A mass hysteria for doctors, athletes, and savvy people like Bill Gates. If it is, then placebo is something very important, because I started interviewing people who have been drinking this water. Each stated that they purchased their ionizer after drinking the water and recognizing what it did for them.
Looking further into other ionizer brands to get a fair comparison, we learned they were cheaper than the brand we were testing, however none would allow us to try the water without first buying. Not wanting to purchase it, and pay a restocking fee of about $500 to return it, we had no way for hands on testing. It came to our attention that the machine may have been nonreturnable either way if used in hard water that is over 14 TDS, or total dissolved solids, which is most of the country. The ionizer used in the Japanese hospitals had no such restriction. We also learned that many of the ionizers that we weren’t allowed to test were limited to producing 3 to 5 gallons a day.
Going over that number of gallons could void the warranty, even if it stated it was a lifetime warranty. Drinking it, cooking with it, and sharing it with others would easily go over 3 gallons a day and likely over 5 gallons. We are still unclear why that would void a warranty.
Who else drinks this water? NY Yankees players, Jillian Michaels, Steven Tyler, Bill Gates, Carlos Santana, Multiple MMA fighters and Pro Boxers, Sylvester Stallone, Dr. Corinne Allen uses it in her brain treatment center, and NFL player, Michael Robinson, talks about it in his Robinson Report series mentioning that he doesn’t get tired or sore when he plays on it.
To conclude, since drinking this water, our testing group noticed improvements in elimination and less constipation, decrease in acid reflux, more energy, less tiredness during the day, sleeping better, increased libido, and reduction in high blood pressure. The FDA has not, as far as we know, approved of ionized water for health benefits or any other reason. We make no claims that any of these changes are due to drinking ionized water.
Health News Reporter 