Health effects of drinking Alkaline Water

Health Effects of Drinking Alkaline Water

Question from a visitor:

Dear Randy:

Everything I've heard and seen about Enagic's Kangen water machine are good, but I think it's definitely overpriced. I have the machine in my home at this time and am considering sending it back this week.

I read something last night that it's a scam and overpriced and multi-level marketing. Two of those may be true, but I don't know about it being a scam. There are a couple of testimonies I saw on GOOGLE, YOUTUBE and one other website that said that the Kangen water helped some health related problems.

What can you tell me about this, please?

Thank you.

Monique

The Bottom Line:

	There is no evidence in standard medical or scientific literature to support claims that alkaline water is better for your health than drinking regular water. All water ionizers use electrolysis to produce a basic (alkaline) solution, typically sodium hydroxide which is used in drain cleaner, and regular bleach. The alkalinity of the water is relatively weak and is neutralized immediately by the stomach contents - with no change to the pH of the body.
	There is no evidence that water forms stable clusters of any size, that water clusters are different in alkaline water, or that it would make any difference if the cluster size were different. Similarly, dissolved hydrogen will have no effect on health.
	Read related topics: Altered Water & Water Scams

Hi Monique - Thanks for your question about Kangen alkaline water.

I am extremely skeptical about alkaline/ionized water machines as well as a number of other water products for which similar health claims are made.

Other names for alkaline water include: Ionized Water, Antioxidant Water, Microclustered Water, Live Water, Alkaline Water, Living Water, Energized Water, Structured Water, and Microwater.

There are many products that claim to deliver alkaline water that's beneficial to health.

I checked the Kangen company site as well as the Jupiter Ionizer site:

Combining information from both companies, the main claims made about alkaline water include:

Ionized Water is a powerful antioxidant - Since Ionized Water is a liquid antioxidant, it is easily absorbed into the body which makes it much more effective and powerful antioxidant. Once the Ionized Antioxidant in the form of Hydroxyl Ions (oxygen molecule with an extra electron) donates its extra electrons to free radicals (oxygen molecule that is missing one electron) you are left with lots of oxygen. Ionized Water gives you Energy by providing your body with lots of oxygen!
"Claims that "ionized" waters are antioxidants are untrue; hypochlorites (present in most such waters) are in fact oxidizing agents."
(Stephen Lower)

Ionized Water Balances body pH because it is very alkaline - Maintaining an alkaline pH (6.9-7.2) helps us to maintain an environment in our bodies that is NOT conducive to disease. It may take years depending on how acidic your body is, but Ionized Water, because of its alkaline properties, will flush acid waste from our bodies.
The pH of fluids in the body's cells is not altered by a normal diet that contains acidic as well as alkaline foods or drinks. Any alkaline substance that enters the stomach will be immediately neutralized by the acid environment. As the stomach contents pass into the small intestine the acidity is neutralized by sodium bicarbonate from the pancreas. The stomach must be acidic to kill microbes and to initiate the process of protein digestion.

Colloidal Hydrogen - Research focused on dissolved hydrogen released through electrolysis of water was presented at The Japan Functional Water Association Meeting in late December of 2002. It reported that Kangen water^(TM) is effective in controlling the oxidation of lipids in the body. It also reported that dissolved hydrogen present in the colloidal state has a higher activity level than active hydrogen produced at the instance of reaction.
There is absolutely no evidence in reputable scientific or medical journals to support the claim that hydrogen gas dissolved in water has any biological activity in the body.

Cluster Size - Approximately 15 years ago, with the help of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) 1 appliance, it was confirmed that water does not exist in single unit molecules, but forms a molecular population (cluster) 2 out of approximately 13 water molecules. These clusters are constantly repeating an aggregation-disaggregation process. The quality of water depends on the size of its clusters. For example, small clusters have active molecules that increase the capacity of water to dissolve elements (solubility), let elements pass through (permeability), and let heat pass through (conduction). Electrolysis causes the water clusters to break, and Kangen water^(TM) has clusters made up of five to six water molecules resulting in a lower molecular weight. This is approximately half of that of tap water (12-15 water molecules/cluster) and is most beneficial for your health.
There is absolutely no evidence in reputable scientific or medical journals to support the claim that liquid water can be stabilized into any fixed-size cluster. Even if it were possible to demonstrate the formation of stable water clusters which would survive the environment of the stomach and the small intestine where water absorption occurs, that would not explain how clusters could possible be beneficial to health. Water enters cells as individual molecules, not as clusters, so the obvious conclusion would be that stable water clusters (if they existed) would actually inhibit water absorption not promote it.

Healing Properties - The only aspects of Kangen water^(TM) we are allowed to speak of or write about are abnormal gastroi-ntestinal fermentation, chronic diarrhea, indig-estion, hyperacidity, and the astringent effect. Although these are the bases of more significant illnesses, speaking of them is against the law. There are numerous cases in clinical studies conducted by doctors or pharmacists that found drinking Kangen water^(TM) cures various illnesses. It is also known that driving out active oxygen from the body with Kangen water^(TM) inevitably boosts the natural healing power.
The only Healing Properties these companies are allowed to get away with, because of Federal Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission rules, are the vague, non-specific, generalized claims that do not require proof - as long as they include a disclaimer that the product does not treat diseases. In order to make a claim that a product actually "cures various illnesses" the claim must be proved by reputable, reviewed studies. Promoters of these products have not demonstrated any such proof despite such meaningless statement as "There are numerous cases in clinical studies conducted by doctors or pharmacists that found drinking Kangen water^(TM) cures various illnesses." If alkaline water was actually able to cure any disease, these companies could provide the evidence and sell the product as a legitimate medicine.

Despite company claims to the contrary, the water ionization process appears to be standard water electrolysis, which is described in great detail this site:
Stephen Lower, Chemist: "Ionized" and alkaline water: Snake oil on tap" and also on these sites.
Discovery Chanel: Mythbusters Message Board.
Andrew Weil, M.D.: Does Alkaline Water Promote Health?
Mayo Clinic: Alkaline water: Does it have health benefits?
Quackwatch: Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense, Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

Kangen Water: Change Your Water, Change Your Life: A scientific look at one of the latest multilevel marketing fads: healing water machines, devices costing thousands of dollars claiming to ionize or alkalize your tap water, and claiming a dazzling range of health and medical benefits. Sold under such names as Kangen, Jupiter Science, KYK, and literally hundreds of others, these machines do either nothing or almost nothing (beyond basic water filtration), and none of what they may actually do has any plausible beneficial purpose.

For a product with such miraculous claims, it is remarkable how little actual evidence there is to support those claims. There are virtually no papers published in reputable (peer reviewed) scientific journals that demonstrate either that alkaline water is better for health than regular water or that there are special physical properties of alkaline water, like smaller cluster size*. There are some papers referenced on the Jupiter site that describe the ability of the "acid" water to disinfect - which is not surprising, considering the "acid water" is basically bleach. Virtually all claims that made about alkaline water by manufacturers, marketers, and distributors demonstrate a remarkable lack of knowledge about the physical and chemical properties of water or about how the body regulates pH.

If the claims were actually true that you could significantly alter the pH of your blood and cellular environment by drinking alkaline water (or acidic water for that mater) the devices would probably kill people. The body has remarkable feedback mechanisms to keep the pH in various parts of the body within very specific ranges so that the necessary chemical reactions can take place. If pH within cells could be arbitrarily altered by something a person ate or drank during the day the consequences would not be good for health.

Water ionizers produce two kinds of water: "alkaline water" containing sodium hydroxide (used in drain cleaner) and "acid water" containing ordinary bleach. This is one of the processes municipal water companies can use to produce chlorine for water treatment.

I cover similar types of products and their claims in some detail in discussions about altered water and water scams. The problem for the consumer, is that because of the placebo effect some people do experience benefits from the products despite the fact that they are actually drinking (very expensive) water with no special properties - beyond the rather remarkable properties water already has.

I was unable to discover whether or not the Kangen products have a decent filtration system because I could find no description of the process, and could not find a certification listing at NSF.org

* There are a few published papers that seem to suggest that alkaline water has positive health effects. A promising sounding article, "Anti-diabetic effect of alkaline-reduced water on OLETF rats", by Jin D, et. all., Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2006 Jan;70(1):31-7. in which an experimental group of rats was given Alkalin-reduced water (ARW), and a control group, which received laboratory tap water concluded that ARW spurred the growth of OLETF rats during the growth stage, and that long-term ingestion of ARW resulted in a reduction in the levels of glucose, triglycerides, and total cholesterol in the blood. I discovered, however, that the ARW was generated by Alkalogen sticks which contain magnesium that is released into the water - so the rats were drinking water supplemented with magnesium.

Coincidently, another paper "Effect of increased magnesium intake on plasma cholesterol, triglyceride and oxidative stress in alloxan-diabetic rats", by Olatunji LA, Soladoye AO., Afr J Med Med Sci. 2007 Jun;36(2):155-61., concluded that "these results suggest that diet rich in magnesium could exert cardioprotective effect through reduced plasma total cholesterol, triglyceride, oxidative stress and ameliorated HDL-cholesterol/total cholesterol ratio as well as increased plasma ascorbic acid and magnesium in diabetic rats." There are a number of papers listed on a PubMed search for "magnesium diabetes insulin" including "Implications of Magnesium Deficiency in Type 2 Diabetes: A Review".

Tracking down claims that are made about health effects of various products, to discover the truth of those claims is much like a detective who sorts through evidence at a crime scene to try and figure out "who done it". An early step in the investigative process is to look through abstracts of scientific and medical journals to see if studies have been published which support the claims. A published paper indicates that author(s) discovered sufficient evidence of high enough quality to convince a reviewer or review panel that that the product affects health in some way. All scientific and medical journals are not created equal, however, and some have much less rigorous review processes than others. The result, unfortunately, is that papers can be published that are only superficially "scientific".

The paper listed above on the positive effects of ARW, for example had at least two flaws that would have prevented its publication in most journals:
1) The study was not blinded
2) The authors neglected to mention whether the control tap water had the same mineral ion concentration as the ARW water with the added magnesium, but the methods section did not indicate that any effort was made to add an equivalent amount of magnesium to the control tap water. If there was more magnesium in the ARW than the tap water the results would probably have been due to the benefits of magnesium.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Best wishes.

Randy