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Can The Structure
Of Water Be "Altered" So It Is More (or less)
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Altered Water Claims: |
I
prepared the discussion below
in response to questions visitors ask about the truth of claims made by manufacturers and
distributors of altered or enhanced water products---or devices
that allegedly enhance water. Promotions for these enhanced water products claim that the physical properties and/or energy characteristics of water molecules can be altered by some process to produce a wide range of general health benefits. Claims are also made that the structure/energy of water produced by distillation and reverse osmosis is actually harmful to health and that 'acidic' water is harmful or 'alkaline/ionized' water is beneficial to health.
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Altered Water Processes: |
| and Yes: People may indeed experience perceived benefits after they drink enhanced/altered products like Nikken Pi Mag, Willard catalyzed, alkaline, oxygenated, John Ellis, Penta, or countless other 'flavors' of altered water. The well documented placebo effect is so powerful that people's expectations and beliefs about how a product will work can actually cause the expected experience. The placebo's evil twin the nocebo effect is probably responsible for any negative effects experienced from drinking water produced by distillation or reverse osmosis. This article discusses the placebo effect and proposes a BEET score to rate the effectiveness of products that are able to trigger the placebo effect (placebo references). Penn and Teller's Placebo Effect episode further illustrates how suggestion and an uncritical willingness to believe can explain not only people's perceptions about bottled water but their acceptance of claims from downright fraudulent companies. The reality is that the alleged health effects for altered water products can not be distinguished from untreated water in well designed, blinded studies. |
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Question 1 Answer
1 Hi M____ I am glad you enjoyed my website. Your questions actually fall into three
categories:
A summary of the process to test claims for 'altered or enhanced' water using (Criteria e) would involve giving one group of subjects 'altered' water over a period of time and giving the control group the same amount of purified but not 'altered' water (without either the subjects or the experimenters knowing who is getting what). All product claims (more energy, better hydration, etc.) would be carefully measured and recorded for each group. After several weeks, the water would be switched (without the subjects or experimenters knowing when) and measurements would continue. After the experiment was completed, the results would be tabulated and a preliminary analysis made of the measured outcomes. Finally, the results would be unblinded and fully analyzed (blinding during the preliminary analysis phase minimizes any unconscious bias on the part of the statistician). If there were real, beneficial health effects of the 'altered' water, the data would ONLY show real, positive differences in the results recorded when the subjects drank the 'altered' water.
Altered/enhanced water companies usually support their claims with variations of criteria (a), (b), (c), or (d). These are examples of Anecdotal Evidence. You are basically taking someone's word that a product is effective (or relying on your own experience). Anecdotal evidence is not necessarily false or bad (in fact that is probably how most valid scientific theories got started), but with anecdotal evidence there is no way to determine whether the experienced effect was caused by the product, by chance, or because of an expectation of what the product should do - the placebo effect described below. When health claims are made for expensive products with nothing but anecdotal evidence to support the claims, I am extremely skeptical. There is absolutely no enforced regulation of ANY of the claims made by these 'altered' water companies beyond those imposed on "normal" bottled water. The companies are usually very careful to state that "They do not make any claims that the product treats or cures a specific disease condition", If they made such claims, they would be regulated by the FDA and would be required to provide scientific proof of the claims. The companies typically follow that disclaimer, however, by stating "look what it has done for all these people" - and then let the anecdotal health claims "speak for themselves" There are papers published in alternative health journals that seem to support health claims of some 'altered' water products. These journals are biased toward non-traditional treatment methods. That is not a bad thing, necessarily, but one important characteristic of good science is that the results of a study can be reproduced by anyone at any time whether they are skeptical of the outcome or biased toward it—that is why blinding is so important. Blinding minimizes bias in either direction. The mainstream scientific and medical communities pretty much ignore experimental evidence found in papers in alternative health journals. That is not the case if the claims are published in a mainstream scientific or medical journal. The scientific community will typically respond very quickly with a careful dissection of the study methods, results, analyses, and conclusions and then attempt to duplicate the study. Mainstream scientific journals (which are skeptical toward 'altered' water claims) publish
very few papers that seem to validate altered water product claims. Two arguments are typically used to explain why
research from developers and promoters of altered water products is not found in
mainstream scientific and medical journals: Neither excuse is convincing: The financial rewards to a company that developed a proven, safe, inexpensive enhanced water product that met all criteria for scientific acceptance and provided a significant health benefit (that was different than the benefit of drinking untreated water) would be enormous. The truth is, companies that manufacture and market 'altered' water products are not interested in performing experiments that will withstand skeptical scrutiny—most probably because they can't, but why bother even trying when people purchase their product anyway and report benefits. Scientists believe the claims of altered/enhanced water products to be non-issues - not worth bothering with, and are usually not willing to invest the time and money required to test the claims (the exception, as noted above, is when a paper supporting alternative water claims is published in a mainstream journal). Companies marketing the 'altered' water frequently state that scientific evidence is available to back their claims. Be skeptical and try to actually locate and read the paper that supports the claim. If there is no link provided, ask the company for a copy of the paper, and (if you ever receive it) take it to a local science teacher to get another opinion. There is an additional complication in trying to assess the effectiveness of certain products that claim to produce health benefits, the Placebo Effect. The placebo effect is the observation that a person's expectation of how a product will work can sometimes cause the expected result even if the actual treatment was never administered. For example, a sugar pill given as a pain reliever to someone with arthritis might cause a reduction of pain in some individuals.
You mentioned that you have had positive experiences with several of these 'altered' waters. Is it possible that your positive experiences could have been 'colored' by your expectations of what the water would/should do? If you have access to some of these water types, you can do some double blinded experimenting on your own (neither you nor the person giving you the water samples would know which water you were drinking - and thus 'what to expect' from the water). If you get together a small group of interested people, you might at least be able to test the idea (or hypothesis) that a person can tell by 'how they feel' if they are drinking 'altered' water or 'normal' water - the taste of the water would have to be very similar though. This page provided a good outline of how to test and compare the effects of different products without introducing bias. In answer to the claims
that reverse osmosis (or distillation) renders water "dead"
- I would generally use the same arguments as above. I have not heard of any
'vital force' being attributed to water (by scientists, anyway). Pure water will
have a molecular structure of H2O and will be utilized equally well
by the body regardless of treatment methods use whether
traditional purification technologies are used (filtration, distillation, RO, etc.) or
pseudo-scientific treatments as described in the references below. I
discuss the topic of water treated with distillation and reverse osmosis
on this page.
I hope this helps. If you have any further questions, let me know.. Best wishes. Randy |
Response and Question 2:
Answer
2 Hi M____ I take the time to answer people who have questions in part because I am troubled by the rampant miss-information campaigns I see, not only on the internet, but in stores and in all the media. A good proportion of the marketing campaigns seem to be designed exclusively to separate people from their money. If you constantly feel dehydrated despite drinking plenty of water, there may be some physical problem causing the feeling rather than the type of water you are drinking. I am not a physician, so I won't even hazard a guess, but I thought I'd bring that up as a possibility to consider.
Even the faintest hint of a suggestion about what to expect can subtly influence the mind to interpret subsequent events a particular way. For example, in your experience with Nikken Pi Mag water, did the sales representative walk in, immediately offer you three identical-looking glasses of water to drink (with absolutely no comments or explanations about what the samples were or what you might experience), and then ask you to record your impressions about each glass of water - again with no prompting about what you were drinking or what kinds of impressions to be thinking about? That would be the ONLY way to reduce the possibility (probability) that the sales presentation influenced the outcome of the "test" - but then sales people are usually VERY interested in influencing the outcome of a demonstration! I suspect the stage was carefully set by the sales person so you knew exactly what each glass contained and what you were supposed to experience. The response (unconscious usually) of the mind to the 'power of suggestion' can not be over-emphasized - that's why some sales people are so effective, and why experimental studies are so difficult to set up - the experimenters, the subjects, and even the analysis team can be subtly and unconsciously influenced by the minds' expectations. An important part of the scientific review process I mentioned in my previous letter is to try to discover if expectations about the outcome of a study had any influence on how the scientists set up the study and recorded, analyzed, or interpreted the data. As one of the articles below mentions, "even the course of an illness" can be affected by the mind's ability to modify the body's response to an event (again, the placebo effect). In the case of the "test" where you sampled Nikken Pi Mag water, any of the situations outlined below would be more than enough to predispose your mind to accept a particular sample as "better than" the others. In the discussion below, situations 1 and/or 2 '
would set the stage' for the mind to be thinking about the great things that
will happen when the Nikken water is sampled. Then, with a positive expectation, any knowledge
about the identity of a sample (situations 3 and/or 4), no matter how slight,
can allow a difference in the samples to be "detected".
1) Even if there were some way to create special clusters (or other alterations) of water molecules, it is most unlikely that these carefully balanced "structures" would survive intact during the several hour journey through the acid contents of the stomach into the intestines where the water molecules are absorbed. I included a couple of references below that explain the stomach environment and the absorption process of water into the intestine. I go into some detail about this idea in my discussion on distilled water. 2)
Water
absorption in the intestine is driven by osmosis - a passive process that
depends (as far as is known) only on the concentrations of dissolved materials
(or solutes) on either side of a membrane (the cells in the intestine and in the
rest of the body). Basically, water molecules move from areas of low solute
concentration into areas of high solute concentration. Cells in the intestine
can increase the concentration of solutes within their membrane (by 'pumping'
sodium in, for example), and the water follows by osmosis. According to current theories of water
transport into cells, special proteins form small
channels in the membrane
that are just large enough for single water molecules to fit through. The
special clusters would have to disassemble to move out of the intestines, reassemble within the bloodstream
for transport throughout the body, and disassemble again to move into other cells.
The accepted model
of water transport
provides no mechanism to explain how water
clusters or other forms of 'altered' water could possibly benefit to the body -
even if the clusters could be created, stabilized, and controlled.
If you are able to get an explanation that addresses any of the questions above (or similar questions that you devise), I would be EXTREMELY INTERESTED in receiving a copy of the communication and the person's name and e-mail address. I do not claim to know everything about this subject, but I do know enough to be extremely skeptical about certain claims without very good evidence to back up those claims. There is an important saying in the scientific community "Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof". Claims made by manufacturers and marketers of 'altered' water can be said to be "Extraordinary" because they fall outside the scope of mainstream scientific theories and conventional understanding of how the world "works". Consequently, in order for the mainstream
scientific and medical communities to accept any of the altered water claims as
valid,
those who produce and promote the products must: So far, none of the the developers and/or promoters of any product you mentioned nor any of the other products on the market for which similar claims are made has been able to address any one of the three criteria above to the satisfaction of the mainstream scientific and medical communities. Homeopathic remedies are an excellent example of a well established altered
water product that does not meet any of the criteria necessary for acceptance by
the mainstream science and medical communities. Specifically: Hope this additional information helps Best wishes for your quest into pure, healthful water Randy Reference below for:
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Several relevant references:
Aqua Scams The purpose of this site is to examine the scientific validity of the
explanations given by the proponents of "alternative" water treatment
devices or, in the case of "clustered water", of a fictional
alternative form of water that is purported to be a restorer of youth and vigor.
My motivation for doing this is entirely non-vested and very simple: after
thirty-four years of teaching general, physical, and environmental Chemistry, it
disturbs me to see my favorite science presented incorrectly (and often mangled
into pseudoscience) in the promotion of processes or devices offered to the
public. Also take a look at his Clustered
Water discussion and general comments on water.
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.
A good PowerPoint discussion on different water-related scams from the Alabama State Water Program.
A somewhat less skeptical treatment of "altered water"
topics - also a good source of water information:
Water structure and behavior:
"A number of explanations of the complex behavior of water have been published,
many quite recently. In this site, I have brought together a self-consistent
selection of these ideas, which I hope will encourage both the understanding of
water and further work."
| This book pretty much sums
up the points made above about conducting scientific research and
publishing results in an honest, open manner that invites scrutiny
of the methods, analysis, results, and conclusions. Those
who develop and market altered water products typically make no
attempt to follow even the basic principles outlined in the first 11
pages of this book.
"The
scientific research enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Scientists
trust that the results reported by others are valid. Society trusts that the
results of research reflect an honest attempt by scientists to describe the
world accurately and without bias. But this trust will endure only if the
scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the
values associated with ethical scientific conduct..." |
The references below (and the claims quoted) are listed for information only, and definitely DO NOT represent my endorsement of (or belief in the value of) the products! - RJ
I'll mention one specific type of 'altered water' here because I actually listened to an early promotional tape in the late 90s that consisted of an interview with the 'creator' of the water. In my opinion, the interview was a very clever mix of truth, nonsense, and truth used in the wrong way (that is, true statements used improperly to support a particular point).
2009 Update - Penta Water has toned down its
marketing rhetoric over the past few years. Current marketing claims
on the home page no
longer seem to reference the original alleged characteristic that gave the
product its name, small clusters of 5 water molecules that the company
originally claimed were more easily absorbed by the body. Claims of a
30% smaller cluster size can, however still be found on the
bottled water website:
2009 claims on the company website:
Penta Water is ultra
purified, energized water that not only fully hydrates, but may also help
increase antioxidant activity in your body.
During the last
decade, The Penta Water Company has received numerous reports from consumers
regarding the positive effects of drinking Penta. These various comments
include references to feelings of more energy, a greater sense of
well-being, and even improved appearance of skin.
"Penta Water is first cleaned using a state of
the art purification system to remove all impurities. No other bottled water
is as pure! The water then goes through the patented Penta process which
spins the water at high speed and pressure for 11 hours, and as a result
increases antioxidant activity."
A current (2009) page on the
bottled water website describes a different process
"Penta is
the only bottled water that uses physics, not chemicals, to restructure its
water. The water is cycled through the Penta Process until a specific set
point of thermal energy is released for approximately 7-8 hours.
2009 product claims
on the bottled water website include:
"Proof that Penta is restructured water: Penta has been shown through highly
technical scientific testing (Raman spectroscopy) to have 30 percent smaller
molecular water clusters. It has also been observed that Penta has a higher
boiling point and higher viscosity than normal water. Penta's unique
structure is also patented and has been verified in a published,
peer-reviewed study conducted by scientists at Moscow's General Physics
Institute.
Research has shown that Penta water's unique properties provide the
following benefits:
* In-vitro studies show an increase in cell survivability by 266%.
* In-vitro studies show that Penta water dissolves calcium oxalate
monohydrate (the main substance in 85% of kidney stones) three times faster
than normal water.
* In-vitro studies on human cells reveal that lab distilled water DNA
chromosomal mutation rates were 271% greater than Penta water.
In addition, countless Penta drinkers have told us that, by effectively
hydrating, they look and feel more youthful, energetic and all around
better.
The James Randi Educational Foundation includes an interesting discussion on Penta Water and describes the Foundation's attempts to persuade the company to participate in their million dollar challenge. hhttp://www.randi.org/jr/08-24-01.html, http://www.randi.org/jr/08-31-01.html, http://www.randi.org/jr/110201.html (about 3/4 of the way down), http://www.randi.org/jr/083002.html (about 1/2 of the way down) and http://www.randi.org/jr/121903lins.html ( just over 1/2 of the way down).
Here's another type of clustered water - a concentrate,
no less. Just add concentrated water to a glass of water...
"Science" according to
Zunami™ bottled water:
In the human body, there are two basic types of water (biowater):
Bound water and Clustered Water. Clustered Water(tm) is able to move freely
through the cell walls(a) and is necessary to transport nutrients, remove waste,
and maintain proper communication between the cells. Bound
water, on the other hand, is water that becomes physically bound to other
molecular structures and is unable to move freely through the cell walls(b). When we are young, our bodies contain a high level of this remarkable water and very little bound water.*
However, as we age, bound water becomes more predominant and free water levels decrease, hindering the effectiveness of literally thousands of metabolic functions and causing significant structural changes in our body’s tissues.
Zunami™ is highly purified water that has been raised to a high level of electromagnetic power through a proprietary process, the result is Hexa Structured Water™. No preservatives or additives are used in this process.
It is this restructuring that makes these products so effective in accelerated hydration through enhanced mobility.
The process begins with extremely pure distilled water and, while it is exposed to special lasers and extremely strong magnetic fields to create stable water "clusters". Most water is in organizations or clumps of 60 or more water molecules (H2O). The process is designed to
structure the water molecules into clusters that are very mobile, therefore entering the cell system very rapidly(a) and replenishing inter-cellular water.
{A real bargain at only $40 for 4 gallons - RJ}
Never mind the company has the biology completely backwards. In truth:
a) Water clusters can not move freely through the cell wall -
water moves
through cell membranes as single molecules.
b) The text above makes "bound water" seem like a problem.
However,
water that is bound to proteins
and other macro molecules in the cell is necessary for them to function
properly.
I can not find anything on the sites below that describes how the magnetic or far-infrared technologies of Nikken's water system actually works. From what I can tell, it is mostly a carbon block filter - and a very expensive one at that (over $900 with shipping), with expensive replacement filters. I could not discover the pore size, but from the contaminants removed, I would expect it would be 1 micron or smaller. My ideas about the additional 'altering' of the water by the other elements of the filter would fall into the discussion above..
The references below are listed for information only, and definitely DO NOT represent my endorsement of (or belief in the value of) this product! - RJ
PiMag Water System: PiMag water also offers more. Decades ago, scientists discovered that the water in a remote area of Japan produced amazing results on the surrounding plants. They named it pi water. Nikken has succeeded in replicating the environment that created pi water in nature, and these discoveries are incorporated in PiMag products. You will taste and feel the difference!
2009 update: Nikken, like Penta Water, has toned down the rhetoric on its corporate site over the past few years and now provides very few details on the processes involved in producing PiMag water. A glimpse into the history can be found by visiting reseller sites that still provide details that were once part of the official Nikken site.
One way to determine the actual performance of a product is to look at the
independent certification. NSF
certification of the Nikken water system.
Type Nikken into the 'MANUFACTURER' search box and clicked on 'Search by
Manufacturer'.
The results in 2009 for the Pi-Mag 13151
and Pi-Mag 13155 cartridges were:
Standard 42 - Aesthetic Effects
Chlorine Reduction, Class I
Nominal Particulate Reduction, Class I
Taste and Odor Reduction
Standard 53 - Health Effects
Cyst Reduction
Lead Reduction
MTBE Reduction
Turbidity Reductionion
VOC Reduction
Compare that with the NSF certification for the Solid Block Activated Carbon filter I recommend: It's a high-end and fairly expensive filtration system at $400 - yet less than 1/2 the cost of the Nikken filter.
The certified list of contaminants removed by the standard
CB6AD filter cartridge is:
For Standard 042 - aesthetic
Chlorine Reduction, Class I
Particulate Reduction, Class I
Chloramine Reduction
Taste and Odor Reduction
For Standard 053 - contaminants of health concern
Asbestos Reduction
Chlordane Reduction
Cyst Reduction
Lead Reduction
Mercury Reduction
MTBE Reduction
PCB Reduction
Toxaphene Reduction
Turbidity Reduction
VOC Reduction (volatile organic chemical)
Reduction - you will see a long list of specific VOCs
My Day with the Homeopaths - Part I
- by Steven Novella
Yesterday I took part in a panel discussion titled, A Debate: Homeopathy - Quackery Or A Key To The Future of Medicine? hosted by the University of Connecticut Medical Center. You might think that the title is a bit of a false dichotomy, but in this case it is accurate, for the two sides of this debate occupied far ends of the belief spectrum with a wide gulf between us.
After my presentation on the extreme scientific implausibility of homeopathy, materials scientist Rustum Roy presented his completely unconvincing case for its plausibility. His strategy was to argue that the only significant scientific objection to homeopathy (other than the blind bias, prejudice, “homeophobia” - his term, and materialistic assumptions of scientists) is that homeopathic water does not contain any molecules of active ingredient. However, he argues, the key to material function is not composition but structure, so we should be looking at the structure of water and not what is in it...
My Day with the Homeopaths - Part II
- by Steven Novella
Donald Marcus from Baylor did an excellent job of presenting a review of the clinical evidence for homeopathy, accurately conveying that the evidence is largely negative. Iris Bell, a protege of Andrew Weil from the University of Arizona, had the job of distorting and cherry picking the clinical evidence to make is seem as if it supports homeopathy. Her strategy was typical, standard fare for CAM proponents.
First, she argued that we should accept clinical observations as reliable evidence. These are open-label or uncontrolled case reports, essentially the clinical experience of homeopaths. This is all a fancy way of saying anecdotal evidence, which over a century of scientific medicine has taught us is completely unreliable. I think anecdotes are worse than unreliable - they tend to lead us to conclusions we wish to be true rather than those that are true, and they can cause a false sense of confidence in the unwary.
One of the more notorious examples a mainstream
journal that published a paper
supporting
'altered' water claims is a 1988 paper in Nature that appeared to support the
homeopathic claim that water can retain a memory of substances that were
once dissolved in it.
E. Dayenas et. al. "Human basophil degranulization triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE". Nature. 1988 Jun 30;333(6176):816-8.
The latter can be demonstrated at dilutions of anti-IgE that range from 1 x 10(2) to 1 x 10(120); over that range, there are successive peaks of degranulation from 40 to 60% of the basophils, despite the calculated absence of any anti-IgE molecules at the highest dilutions. Since dilutions need to be accompanied by vigorous shaking for the effects to be observed, transmission of the biological information could be related to the molecular organization of water.
The response
from the scientific community was immediate, and many subsequent efforts to duplicate the
study have failed.
The episode is described here.
Placebo
effects - Background: The benefits of therapeutic interventions in
clinical practice are often enhanced by placebo effects. Placebo effects can be
defined as the positive physiological or psychological changes associated with
the use of inert medications, sham procedures, or therapeutic symbols within a
healthcare encounter. Placebos can also be active substances or real procedures
that produce unexpected beneficial effects. For example, antibiotics may be
considered placebos when prescribed for viral respiratory illnesses that are not
expected to respond to antibiotic action. Placebo effects may also be viewed as
a subset of a larger group of mind-brain-body effects such as the
psycho-physiological effects of religious beliefs and devotional practices,
meditation, faith-based healing, hypnosis, and the effects of cultural and
social economic systems on the prevalence and severity of specific diseases.
These effects have been scientifically documented by an increasing body of
research. Mind-brain-body effects, including placebo effects, are not fully
appreciated in contemporary medicine. {continues with an interesting description
of the effect}
How People Are Fooled by Ideomotor Action - Ideomotor Action:
The "influence of suggestion in modifying and directing muscular movement, independently of volition"
- an interesting phenomenon
related to the placebo effect. This article describes experiments that
show how a person's beliefs and expectations affect how their muscles
behave.
More here -
Without Volition: The Presence and Purpose of Ideomotor Movement - Ideomotor action is referred to as "mischief-making" because its unrecognized presence is actually the reason movement occurs in activities such as dowsing, the play with the Ouija board and "facilitated communication." In fact, any activity in which movement is thought to be caused by forces that transcend our senses or are described as metaphysical in nature should be suspected to begin with movement that we don't consciously plan. The word volition is especially important to this concept. Defined as "the power of choosing; the act of making a choice or decision; willful," volition is subtly different than simple reflexive activity thought not to include the higher centers of the brain. And, like a simple reflex, ideomotor movement occurs instinctively, though it is often far more complex and always without volition. This is the primary reason those doing it do not commonly take responsibility for its manifestation or consequence. We suppose ourselves to be consciously in control of our movement for the most part, and it is difficult to convince people otherwise under ordinary circumstances.
The Mysterious Placebo - One of the most significant but widely misunderstood phenomena is the placebo effect. Research shows that the placebo effect can be greater and is far more ubiquitous than commonly thought.
From Placebo to Homeopathy: The Fear of the Irrational The placebo effect is a perfect illustration of scientific exorcism of a disturbing fact (W.A. Brown, Scientific American, Jan. 1998, pages 68-73). Although its existence has been established beyond doubt, all efforts are directed not toward studying its mechanisms, but to subtracting its interference. (subscription required)
Scientific Framework of the Placebo Effect, by
Gershom Zajicek, The Cancer Journal - Vol10:5
The placebo effect is "any dummy medical treatment; originally, a medicinal preparation having no specific pharmacological activity against the patient's illness. . .". This definition summarizes the attitude of modern medicine to a placebo: a useless and undesired side-effect of treatment. Which is unfortunate, since a placebo promotes healing. It may relieve pain, e.g., headache, and even modify the course of an illness. However, medicine regards it as a sham treatment, tainted with deception. Placebo is Latin for "I shall please", and was used in the past to please the patient. Even as late as 1950, catalogs for physicians carried long arrays of pills labeled "Placebo". All this has now vanished and placebo as such is not used.
More on the Placebo Effect - {interesting, but a bit difficult to follow the lines of thought - RJ}
Absorption of Water and Electrolytes. The small intestine must absorb massive quantities of water. A normal person or animal of similar size takes in roughly 1 to 2 liters of dietary fluid every day. On top of that, another 6 to 7 liters of fluid is received by the small intestine daily as secretions from salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, liver and the small intestine itself.
Water
An important function of both small intestine and colon is the absorption of
water and electrolytes. Approximately 2000 ml of food and drink is ingested
daily, and the volume of gastrointestinal secretions (salivary, gastric, biliary,
pancreatic and intestinal) is about 8,000 ml daily; therefore, approximately 10
liters of fluid enters the intestine each day. Of the 8 liters secreted, about
1-1.5 liters enter as saliva, 2-3 liters are secreted by the stomach, about 2
liters enter as bile and pancreatic secretion (about 1 liter each), and about 2
liters are secreted by the small intestine. (Please note that these
figures are approximate, not absolute. Volumes may vary, depending on
experimental method and conditions.) Of the 10 liters which enters the gut each
day, only about 1 liter passes into the colon, about 90% having been absorbed
across the small intestinal epithelium. Only about 150 ml is lost in the feces
daily, with the remainder being absorbed by the colon. It should be obvious that
any derangement in intestinal fluid absorption would profoundly influence the
balance of fluid and electrolytes in the body, and that the normal functioning
of the intestines plays a significant role in regulating water and electrolyte
balance. The net absorption or net secretion of water in
the intestine is the result of bidirectional movements of water from mucosa to
serosa (m-->s flux or absorption) and from serosa to mucosa (s-->m flux or
secretion). In the human intestine, these unidirectional fluxes exceed net
movement 2-3 fold. The rate and direction of net fluid movement depend on
tonicity of the meal, and move toward the achievement of isotonicity {equal
concentration of water on both sides of a membrane - RJ}.
The intestinal mucosal surface consists of a bimolecular lipid membrane, which
(presumably) contains small pores or channels. Water and water-soluble
substances can hypothetically enter the cell through these pores only, while
lipid-soluble substrates can directly cross the lipid cell membrane. Specialized
protein pores, referred to as aquaporins (AQP) have been identified in many
tissues, including colon epithelium; water channel isoforms in small intestinal
epithelium remain to be discovered. Intestinal absorption of water is a passive
process and requires movement of solutes. Water accompanies solute and moves
across the intestinal mucosa in response to osmotic gradients. The rate of water
uptake in any region of the intestine is a function of solute absorption in this
region. All areas of the intestines (including small bowel and colon) absorb
water, the relative amounts absorbed depending on the presence of solutes
{things dissolved in water, sodium, calcium, sugar, etc. - RJ}, and the
types of solutes present. In the jejunum, the active
transport of sugars and amino acids causes passive movement of salt and water,
which accounts for most of the water uptake in this area. In the ileum, most
water movement is accounted for by active sodium transport. As described in
Johnson (Gastrointestinal Physiology), coupled water and sodium transport
involves a specialized mechanism that pumps sodium into the lateral spaces,
resulting in relatively high osmotic pressure in that region. Water then enters
the lateral space from the cell (transcellular flux) and--perhaps--the lumen (paracellular
flux), reducing the osmotic pressure but increasing the hydrostatic pressure.
Fluid is then forced out of the lateral space into the interstitial space. The
net effect is that isotonic fluid is transported from the lumen into the
extracellular fluid. This hypothesis of fluid absorption is illustrated in
Figure 12-5, on page 137 of the Johnson resource.
The Digestive System - Interesting tour of the digestive system.
Aquaporins
- the perfect water filters of the cell
Aquaporins are water channel proteins; they are located in the otherwise water
impermeable cell membrane of many plants and animals. There they prevent
bursting of the cells, e.g., due to changes of the exterior salt concentration
(osmotic regulation). In humans, aquaporins regulate the water flux in the
kidney, red blood cells, the eye lens, and the brain, to name just a few.....
*** The structure showed that the protein forms a channel in the membrane that
is 2 nanometers (billionth meter) long and 0.3 nanometers wide, just large
enough for water molecules to fit through, such that permeation of larger
molecules is prevented.***
{This site has some neat diagrams! One reason that
clustered water is unlikely to have an effect on the cell's intake of water - H2O
molecules appear to cross the cell membrane singly, not as clusters - RJ}
Aquaporins are proteins embedded in the cell membrane that regulate the flow of water. They are "the plumbing system for cells." Aquaporins are integral membrane proteins from a larger family of major intrinsic proteins (MIP) that form pores in the membrane of biological cells.
Aquaporins: Water Channels - Water crosses cell membranes by two routes: by diffusion through the lipid bilayer and through water channels called aquaporins. Functional characterization of the first aquaporin was reported in 1992, but water channels were suspected to exist well before that time, because the osmotic permiability of some types of epithelial cells was much too large to be accounted for by simple diffusion through the plasma membrane. A single human aquaporin-1 channel facilitates water transport at a rate of roughly 3 billion water molecules per second. Such transport appears to be bidirectional, in accordance with the prevailing osmotic gradient.
The Art of Water Transport in Aquaporins - Aquaporins are membrane water channels that play critical roles in controlling the water contents of cells. These channels are widely distributed in all kingdoms of life, including bacteria, plants, and mammals. More than ten different aquaporins have been found in human body, and several diseases, such as congenital cataracts and nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, are connected to the impaired function of these channels.
I guess the easiest way to approach the topic
of alleged health benefits of altered water is to ask - What criteria
would you, personally, accept as validation of the claims for a
particular product?