Now we're going to explore alkaline water. And there's a lot to cover here because I wanted to be thorough as this is a really controversial topic these days. But I've been excited about this section because I get this question all the time. Everyone wants to know about these alkalizing ionizers and the supposedly healing water that they produce. But I'm here to burst some bubbles. Because alkaline water can either be beneficial or not, depending on what makes it alkaline. Usually alkaline water from one of these machines or in water bottles from the store is just reverse osmosis tap water that's been alkalized through an electrolysis process. In nature, water is fairly neutral or even just slightly acidic. The only extremely highly alkaline water anywhere in nature is alkaline because of the ionic minerals it contains, not because it's been electrocuted to separate the hydrogen, as is the case with these machines.
And remember, what we do to water, we do to ourselves so electrocuting your water is probably not a good idea. We didn't adapt over the millennia to drink that. Your blood is meant to be very neutral, and depending on what your blood type is, like if you have blood type O, for example, even just slightly acidic. If you expose your body to these really harsh and overly alkalizing waters over the long term, it can have a really damaging effect. For one thing, you need hydrochloric acid and acidophilus for healthy functioning digestion. Acidophilus in Latin literally means acid-loving bacteria. Certain parts of your body should be acidic to stay healthy. And certain strains of unhealthy bacteria and parasites thrive in a gut that's too alkaline.
H. pylori, for example, is relatively common among people whose body chemistry is overly alkaline from too much time drinking this kind of water. I spoke with a naturopath who does live blood analysis under a dark field microscope in Santa Fe. And when she sees people who've been drinking alkaline water for too long, they actually have a preponderance of ruptured cells. And you could see how their cells have kind of exploded in the bloodstream. Because the body has to work really hard to keep the blood neutral when the water you drink is highly alkaline. And remember, the water you drink becomes your blood within five minutes. The body has to neutralize alkaline water really quickly and effectively. And after years of drinking this unnatural water, it becomes harder for the body to adapt and the cells can begin to rupture.
Now consider this. There are two main ways to make alkaline water. You can make it really easily at home just by adding some baking soda or sodium bicarbonate or via one of these electrolysis machines. And these ionizers produce unnaturally alkaline water by electrocuting the water molecule to split it in half, separating the hydrogen from the oxygen. The second method produces alkalized ionized water that contains hydrogen gas. Interestingly, you don't get the same benefits from drinking baking soda water that you get from drinking electrically alkalized water. Now, why is that? Because the second contains so much more hydrogen. You can receive the same benefits by selectively incorporating hydrogen peroxide supplementation or using molecular hydrogen tablets in your water or just getting straight up molecular hydrogen enriched water.
Even the president of the Korean Water Society, Dr. Lee, who conducted a number of studies showing the effectiveness of alkaline water against things like diabetes and cancer, also showed that when the hydrogen gas was removed, the water was no longer healing. He made the following statement, ”About 17 years ago in the 1990s, I began studying alkaline ionized water and published scientific articles on its antioxidant, anti-cancer, and anti-diabetic effects, but I didn't really understand why the water worked. It was difficult to believe. Upon further investigation, I've now confirmed that the benefits from the alkaline ionized water are attributed to the hydrogen gas produced during electrolysis.” It’'s really not the pH that's healing, it's the hydrogen. And Dr. Hidemitsu Hayashi, a cardiac surgeon and director of the Water Institute in Japan, was another one of the early pioneering researchers in alkaline ionized water.
His work also determined the benefits of alkaline ionized water were due to the hydrogen in the water, not the alkalinity. Okay, so let's take a look at some of the claims that these sales reps are making. Looking at the pH scale, one might think that anything within alkaline pH would neutralize acids in the body. But if that were the case, then eating overcooked meat would reduce acidity, and obviously it doesn't. Cooked meat is super alkaline, but it creates more acidity in the body tissue. And a lemon, one of the most acidic fruits, is well known to be alkalizing to the body. And likewise, adding alkaline minerals to water, like calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, etc., raises the pH of the water, but it doesn't neutralize acids in the body.
Why is this? Because only buffers neutralize acids. For example, if you add a weak acid to a glass of water with a pH that has no buffering capacity, the pH will immediately drop, just as you'd expect. But if you add the same amount of acid to a glass of buffered water, the pH will barely change. A buffer neutralizes the acid, leaving the solution's pH unchanged. Buffers contribute to alkalinity, which is defined as the ability to neutralize acids. Alkalinity, actually, is different from the term alkaline, which just refers to pH. In water and in the human body, buffers are predominantly bicarbonates. They neutralize acids by scavenging hydrogen ions, or H+. So how about just adding alkaline minerals to water? Alkaline minerals alone don't neutralize acids, and they aren't very bioavailable.
This is one reason that adding alkaline minerals to water can sometimes do more harm than good, and because they're not easily absorbed, they can end up as plaque deposits in joints or acidic waste. But when combined with bicarbonates, the same minerals become part of a buffering system that neutralizes acids and makes the minerals in the body more absorbable. And then they can be used or excreted without harm.
Let's return again to the topic of these ionizing machines. Do they create buffered water? No. So the water isn't even capable of neutralizing acids in the body, as the companies claim. Another claim is that the water from these machines is structured. They say that it mimics nature and creates crystalline water because nature creates coherent liquid crystalline water using movement and weak electromagnetic fields.
And those who sell ionizers think that the strong electrical current used during ionization produces coherent liquid crystalline water, and I'm sorry, not sorry, but it doesn't. The electric current does cause water molecules to align in the direction of the electrical current, but the overall degree of structure in the water is reduced. The resulting water is actually aggressive and imbalanced, just like you would expect any organism to be if it had been electrocuted. Now, if you've watched any of my videos or read any of my articles, you know that water crystallography is all about the strength of those hydrogen bonds. And the whole process of electrolysis breaks apart the hydrogen bonds, separating the hydrogen. By definition, it couldn't possibly be structuring the water.
It literally rips the structure apart as it separates the molecules. Dr. Marcel Vogel, one of the most renowned and prolific water crystallography scientists, had this to say about it. He said, "Ionization of the water can occur through structuring the water or by electrical ionization. When the water is electrically ionized, the existing bonds in the water are torn apart. This process of ionization creates water with an electrical charge, but with no structural charge. It does not have the structural information." Now that's from Dr. Marcel Vogel, and Dr. Carly Nuday discusses similar things in her book as well. In other words, structured water may have a negative charge, and alkalized ionized water may have a negative charge, but this does not mean that ionized water is structured.
Make sense? Correlation doesn't equal causation. Without the presence of some acidic compounds, alkaline ionized water is imbalanced, and the body thrives in balance. not in extremes. Three separate studies have shown that long-term consumption of alkaline ionized water may cause cell death, necrosis, fibrosis, and other complications in the heart muscle in rats. And there are also concerns over these machines' inability to remove heavy metals from the water and their potential to create hydrogen isotopes called deuterium, depending on what their cathodes are made of. But we won't go into all of that today, as I'm sure that this is already information overload. Suffice it to say, there are much better options available. But I just encourage everyone to really do your own research. Don't take it from me and don't take it from these companies that are trying to sell you their machines either.
Look for third-party research and look for long-term human studies of alkaline water, not just the short-term ones that are easy to find. General rule of thumb with everything is it's just good to try to align yourself more closely with nature and less with machines, more with water and less with corporations, more with the earth, and less with surrogate standards. Don't take it from me. Do your own experiments. Ask your own body. Check in with your own internal GPS and see how you feel. It's nuanced, and each person has the sovereignty to decide how their thirst is quenched, because as you can see, not all water is created equal, and what you drink, you become. Our bodies are 70% water by volume and molecularly 99.92% water molecules, so let's make more empowered choices about how we hydrate.
And stay tuned for the next lesson where we're going to talk about where to find the highest quality water.
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