Alkaline Water a Cancer Cure or Scam?

Unless you sell water ionizers, I think you know the answer to that question!

Vndors of alkaline water products often claim that drinking their alkaline water is all you need to do in order to obtain optimal health.? Nothing could be further from the truth!

The notion that drinking alkaline water can raise the bodies pH levels is basically a lie. Eating an alkaline diet however is healthy If you do drink alkaline water, what happens? The waters alkalinity is quickly removed by the highly acidic gastric fluid in the stomach. You need this acid in the stomach in order to break down food. The actual uptake of water in our system takes place in the intestines, not in the stomach!. Furthermore, when the broken down stomach contents finally reach the intestine, they are neutralized and made alkaline by pancreatic juice anyway? so all the water you drink eventually becomes alkaline at this point anyway. If you really want to reduce stomach acid (at the possible cost of interfering with protein digestion), you don't have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a water ionizer! All you have to do is take a calcium or magnesium based product such as Tums, Al ka-Seltzer or Milk of Magnesia. Better yet, drink our "good water" which is rich in bio-available calcium and magnesium (and alkaline) and free of toxins like fluoride and pharma drugs! It will only cost you $10 a month to create enough "good water" for your entire family. Here are some other facts you should know about water ionizer's:

Pure water cannot undergo significant electrolysis

One more thing about the electrolysis of pure water: because of the very small number of ions in pure water, it conducts electric current very poorly, so the process is extremely slow and inefficient. This means that if your water supply is free of mineral impurities, no significant amount of electrolysis will occur.

For electrolysis to occur to any practical extent, additional ions must be present in order to transport the current. For example, the large-scale electrolysis of water to manufacture highly pure H2 and O2 is carried out by adding sulfuric acid. The sulfate ions help carry the current, but they do not react at the positive electrode because H2O is more easily decomposed.

... so if your water comes from a well and contains dissolved salts or "hardness ions" such as calcium or magnesium in medium concentrations, electrolysis might be possible, but it will not be effective in removing impurities. It should be noted that groundwater's are usually somewhat alkaline to start with.

Many "water ionizer" devices depend on the addition of ordinary salt to make the water more conductive. Electrolysis of a dilute sodium chloride solution liberates hydrogen gas and hydroxide ions at the cathode, producing an alkaline solution that consists essentially of sodium hydroxide NaOH which can be drawn off as ?alkaline water?. At the anode, chloride ions are oxidized to elemental chlorine. If some of this chlorine is allowed to combine with some of the hydroxide ions produced at the cathode, it disproportionates into hypochlorous acid HOCl, a weak acid and an oxidizing agent. Some ionizer devices allow the user to draw off this solution for use as a disinfecting agent. In many cases the two streams can be combined to form a mixture consisting of both HOCl and sodium hypochlorite (equivalent to diluted ordinary laundry bleach), depending on the pH desired.

So buying a "water ionizer" is a very expensive way of obtaining a solution that you could in principle make yourself by diluting some laundry bleach, and perhaps adjusting the pH by adding a weak acid such as lemon juice. But would you want to drink this "eau de Clorox"? Don't try this at home!

Acid-base chemistry in physiology

Don't be taken in by the pseudoscience peddled by quacks, cranks, kooks or crooks! Instead, take a look at these references provided by real scientists for the education of medical students:

Blood, Sweat and Buffers a course tutorial site from Washington University.
Acid-base tutorial - by Prof. Alan Grogono of Tulane University medical school
Urine pH varies to help maintain acid-base balance

...and any claims that "acidity" promotes cancer is deceptive nonsense.

Acid-base chemistry plays a crucial role in physiology, both at the level of the individual cell and of the total organism. The reasons for this are twofold:

Many of the major chemical components of an organism can themselves act as acids and/or bases. Thus proteins contain both acidic and basic groups, so that their shapes and their functional activities are highly dependent on pH.
Virtually all important metabolic processes involve the uptake or release of hydrogen ions. The very act of being alive tends to change the surrounding intracellular pH (usually reducing it); this will eventually kill the organism in the absence of buffering agents.

About two-thirds of the weight of an adult human consists of water. About two-thirds of this water is located within cells, while the remaining third consists of extracellular water, mostly interstitial fluid that bathes the cells, and the blood plasma. The latter, amounting to about five percent of body weight (about 5 L in the adult), serves as a supporting fluid for the blood cells and acts as a means of transporting chemicals between cells and the external environment. It is basically a 0.15M solution of salt (NaCl) containing smaller amounts of other electrolytes, the most important of which are bicarbonate (HCO3) and protein anions.

Respiration, the most important physiological activity of a cell, is an acid-producing process. Carbohydrate substances are broken down into carbon dioxide, and thus carbonic acid:

C(H2O)n + O2 + H2CO3 + CO2 + H2O

Interestingly, the ingestion of "acidic" foods can make the body more alkaline. This comes about because the weak organic acids in such foods are partly in the form of sodium or potassium salts. In order to maintain charge balance, some of the CO2 produced by normal metabolism of these food acids must be converted into bicarbonate (that is, M+ HCO3) which is a weak base.

See here for more about drinking water and the role of water in your body.

Maintenance of acid-base balance

It is remarkable that the pH of most cellular fluids can be kept within such a narrow range, given the large number of processes that tend to upset it. This is due to the exquisite balance between a large number of interlinked processes operating at many different levels.

Acid-base balance in the body is maintained by two general mechanisms: selective excretion of acids or bases, and by the buffering action of weak acid-base systems in body fluids.
Over a 24-hour period, the adult human eliminates the equivalent of about 20-40 moles of H+ as carbonic acid H2CO3 which breaks down into CO2 (exiting via the lungs) and H2O (through the kidneys.) In addition, the kidneys excrete perhaps 5% of this amount of acid, mostly in the form of H2PO4 and NH4+. Owing to their electric charges, these two species are closely linked to salt balance with ions such as Na+ or K+, and Cl.

The major buffering system in the body is the carbonate system, which exists mainly in the form of HCO3 at normal physiological pH. Secondary buffering action comes from phosphate, from proteins and other weak organic acids, and (within blood cells), the hemoglobin.

Disturbances of acid-base balance

Deviations of the blood plasma pH from its normal value of 7.4 by more than about ?0.1 can be very serious. These conditions are known medically as acidosis and alkalosis. They can be caused by metabolic disturbances such as diabetes and by kidney failure (in which excetion of H2PO4, for example, is inhibited.)

Numerous other processes lead to temporary unbalances. Thus hyperventilation, which can result from emotional upset, leads to above-normal loss of CO2, and thus to alkalosis. Similarly, hypoventilation can act as a compensatory mechanism for acidosis. On the other hand, retention of CO2 caused by bronchopneumonia, for example, can give rise to acidosis. Acidosis can also result from diarrhea (loss of alkaline fluid from the intestine,) while loss of gastric contents by vomiting promotes alkalosis.

Bottom line: Our "good water" is alkaline but that's not what makes it healthy. What makes it hydrating is the fact it contains electrolytes and bioavailable minerals needed for good health and it's toxin free. Water ionizers cannot remove harmful substances such as fluoride from water.

Good Water Biz is a subsidiary of Ionic Zone - Las Vegas, NV - Skype # 702-425-4025 - Toll Free 800-549-9535