Should you be drinking Alkaline Water?

With very few exceptions the answer is a resounding YES!

This question keeps coming up on the internet and I am constantly amazed at the number of people with self-proclaimed expertise on the subject who (sometimes even Medical Doctors, who have no training in the specific subject) post articles proclaiming that alkaline water has no benefits and is a marketing hoax. 

I find it strangely interesting that even though in many parts of the world, alkaline water is considered by hospitals and physicians to be a treatment for a variety of diseases and medical conditions and there exists many, many anecdotal testimonies of people who have, after engaging in a regimen of drinking alkaline water, had symptoms of a variety of diseases and conditions disappear, these supposed "experts" continue to deny the benefits of this water.  In addition, there have been multiple studies of the Hunza people who live in an area where naturally alkaline water is the only source of water and are virtually free of disease and live well in excess of 100 years.

In the Far East, water ionizers are even considered medical devices.  Here in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (with strong influence from Big Pharma) prohibits any claim that alkaline, ionized water can treat or prevent anything.  I guess considering their name, you could expect that.  Alkaline water is not a drug, can be made at home, and, therefore, there is no money in it for the pharmaceutical industry.  Big Pharma (and, unfortunately, many in the medical profession) are NOT interested in curing anything, just treating symptoms.  That keeps patients buying drugs and seeking medical appointments

Those naysayers I mentioned don’t ever talk about other aspects of alkaline, ionized water.  They never, or rarely, mention the anti-oxidant component of the water, or the super hydrating ability of micro-clustered water.  If they ever do mention it, they “poo-poo” its validity even though the value of anti-oxidants has not been questioned and is well documented.   They also don’t acknowledge the hydrating benefits provided by micro-clustered water.  They obviously don’t take the time to understand hydration at the cellular level and the Nobel Prize winning work on aquaporins by Peter Agre (http://www.asmena.ethz.ch/project_description/popular/Aquaporins) and the critical role they play in moving water in and out of the cells.

They don’t acknowledge the role that anti-oxidants and proper hydration plays in helping the immune system to help the body heal itself and prevent illnesses form getting the upper hand.  Disease thrives in an acidic environment and does not live in an alkaline environment.

If alkaline water is a scam, I wonder why so many reputable companies are manufacturing ionizers and why so many bottled water companies are now selling water labeled as being alkaline, or “pH Enhanced”.

While I applaud the bottled water company's decision to offer the product, I have to say…. DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!  There are a couple of reasons I say this:

1.      First, bottled alkaline water, which may start out at a pH of 9.0-9.5 doesn’t stay that way for very long,  usually just a few days to a few weeks before it starts to lose its pH value.  The same is true for the micro-clustering.  The anti-oxidant value, (expressed as ORP or Oxidation Reduction Potential) degrades even faster.  Temperature, light, and time all contribute to this degradation.  Consider that when a bottler bottles the water they put it in disposable plastic bottles (more on that in a minute) and it is stored in a warehouse (which is most likely not air conditioned) for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, then transported in a not air conditioned truck to a store, where it sits either in the stores warehouse or shelve (usually both) for an indeterminate  period until you purchase it.  Then, who knows how long before you actually drink it.  What do you think the odds are that it is still substantially alkaline, and micro-clustered?  As far as being still anti-oxidant…not likely!

2.      Secondly, remember I mentioned those disposable plastic bottles?  There is a plethora of problems with them:

Plastic Water Bottles: Harmful to the Earth, Ocean, Air, and You  

Different kinds of plastic can degrade at different times, but the average time for a plastic bottle to completely degrade is at least 450 years. It can even take some bottles 1000 years to biodegrade! That’s a long time for even the smallest bottle.  90% of bottles aren’t even recycled.  Makes you think twice about that water or soda, right?  Bottles made with Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or PETE) will never biodegrade.

And there are even more reasons to lay off the plastic bottles: about 1.5 million barrels of oil are used every year to make the bottles, and even more oil is burned transporting them. Most of the time, the water inside the bottles has more contaminants than regular old tap water, meaning you could be drinking some serious problems. The EPA has more strict standards on tap water than the FDA does for bottled water, which is something to think about when you’re thirsty!  

Then there is all those plastic bottles and other plastic material that is NOT recycled and ends up in the storm drains, and on the beach and ULTIMATELY in the ocean.  There are no less than 5 huge "islands" of floating plastic in the pacific ocean alone.  At least one of them is the size of the state of Texas.  That is an environmental catastrophe!

Though a combination of light rays and/or water help to degrade the bottles, tiny pieces of plastic still remain. It’s those tiny pieces that contain many of the harmful chemicals that were involved in manufacturing the bottles and that end up in the stomachs of countless marine animals and shorebirds. When we eat fish that have eaten plastic, we’re taking in traces of that plastic too.

But what do water bottles have to do with air quality?  Water bottles are manufactured in petrochemical plants that release harmful air contaminants. Various citizens interviewed who live near these plants reported numerous health problems, such as respiratory issues, that they believe were caused by the air pollutants emitting from the plants. Beth Terry’s “What’s Plastic Got to Do With Clean Air?” on the Moms Clean Air Force website offers additional information on the types of air contaminants involved in the plastic manufacturing process .  (http://www.momscleanairforce.org/whats-plastic-got-to-do-with-clean-air/)

What makes the use of plastic water bottles even harder to swallow are the chemicals we’re potentially ingesting with every sip.  If harmful chemicals are going into plastic bottle production, it makes sense that those chemicals would still be present in the plastic once the manufacturing process is over.  Plastic water bottles are known to leech or release harmful chemicals into the water they contain, especially when left in warm/hot environments (like in the trunks of our cars for soccer games, or in our garages until we need another case).  Disposable bottles’ have a tendency to contain and release Bisphenol A, better known as BPA.  BPA is a compound that imitates hormones in our bodies, and has been linked to a variety of health problems, such as breast and prostate cancer and low sperm count.

So how do I get  Ionized Alkaline water in my home?   As mentioned earlier, there are devices called water ionizers that convert your tap water into healthful, super hydrating, anti-oxidizing alkaline water.  There a two type of home ionizers – electric, which use electrolysis to split the water into two components  ―  alkaline and acidic.  This type of ionizer is capable of producing water at user selectable pH values from about 2.5 to 11.0 (with 7.0 being neutral.)  Water in the 2.5 – 6.9 is acidic and is used for external purposes such as cleaning, skin and hair-care, and disinfecting.  Water from 8.5 -10.0 is increasingly alkaline and is what you should be drinking.   A pH of 11.0 and higher is too alkaline to drink and has other purposes.

The other type of ionizer is non-electric, gravity fed, which filters the water through alkalizing minerals and rare-earth materials to ionize, micro-cluster, and provide anti-oxidants to the water.  This is essentially the same process that takes nature years to accomplish but because of the type of materials used, these ionizers accomplish this in just a couple of hours.

The major difference between this type of ionizer and the electric type is that gravity fed ionizers, not using electrolysis does not produce the acidic water, only alkaline.

Green Health Technologies offers both electric  ionizers and gravity ionizers  in addition to other green technology health and environment related products.

Visit Green Health Technologies today.  Order an ionizer today and begin drinking healthful,  ionized, alkaline water.