If you haven’t heard about alkaline water yet, don’t be alarmed as you are not alone. While the benefits of the water have been known for years to people in the water ionizer industry, it is only recently that awareness of the water has moved beyond a small niche market

What is alkaline water?

Alkaline water is water that has a pH of higher than 7.0. The pH scale starts at 0.0 (maximum acidity) to 14.0 (maximum alkaline). The blood in your body that is slightly alkaline (between 7.3 and 7.4). Body fluid levels close to or slightly above 7.0 are believed to be healthy.

Why should you care about alkalinity?

As we get older our bodies tend to become more and more very acidic (called acidosis which causes health problems. The first sign of acidosis is often heartburn (Tums and other antacids sales are $10 billion annually) providing temporary relief of heartburn symptoms), then arthritis (treatment typically starts with aspirin and then progresses to NSAIDS which have annual sales in the billions of dollars), then Type 2 Diabetes and eventually cancer which is a $400 billion annual business in the USA alone.

Doctors fix damaged bodies instead of teaching people how to be healthy. Don’t blame the docs as they don’t receive any training on how to live a healthy life and they definitely don’t get paid if you are healthy. If you take care of your health, you don’t have to leave it in the hands of others. Learning how to make and keep your body alkaline is a great start.

How to become more alkaline

The best way to become and stay alkaline is to eat and drink healthy alkaline foods (fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds), drink alkaline water, get lots of sleep, and live as stress free as possible.

While eating properly sounds easy, it is not so easy for many of us who live in a busy world and are constantly tempted with unhealthy foods. One simple piece of the “healthy eating” puzzle is to drink alkaline water. However, drinking alkaline water itself is not a magic bullet to great health… but it helps. Washing down an acidic meal of burger and fries (insert your own satisfying but unhealthy fast food here) with alkaline water is better than drinking an insanely acidic Coke, but perhaps its time to revamp your current diet if you are really serious about taking control of you health.

What about the “snake oil” and “scam” claims made against water ionizers?

The claims are made by scientific types who claim that you can’t ionize pure water…and they are correct. However, pure water doesn’t exist in nature and is only available from distillation or reverse osmosis systems. Pure water is clean but it is unhealthy for you because your body needs the minerals found in water.

When you add alkali metals (sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium) or bicarbonates to water, the water does become ionized. This scientific fact is simple to prove but the “snake oil” guys are focused on the public getting scammed by the unscientific claims by people selling high priced water ionizers rather than offering scientific explanations.

Two types of water ionizers

There are two types of water ionizers.

Electric water ionizers run an electrical charge across platinum covered titanium plates which concentrate the cations (magnesium, calcium, and sodium in particular) in the water at the cathode. When water reacts with the cations it becomes alkaline. The anions in the water gather at the anode on the electrically charged plates and become acidic. Electric water ionizers divert the alkaline water to a “drinking” rod and send the acidic water down the drain of your kitchen sink through a “waste” line.

Natural water create alkaline water by simply adding alkali metals (magnesium, calcium, postasium, sodium) to the water. When water reacts to the alkali metals, alkaline water is created. Natural water ionizers cost a fraction of the price of electric water ionizers and produce more stable (long lasting) ionization.

Scientific proof that water ionizers work

Water ionizers actually work despite what you may have read online from the “scam” websites. In the most simple terms, that means people who drink the water produced by water ionizers do receive health benefits.

When a new product comes along, people want to know the cost/benefit of the product. It is difficult for most people to justify spending thousands for a device that sellers claim will improve their health without any “real” scientific evidence being provided.

There is “real” scientific evidence that the water ionizers do provide health benefits. More than 300 studies conducted since 2007 have shown that the molecular hydrogen produced by many water ionizers has been found to be beneficial to more than 80 human diseases.

Which water ionizer should you buy?

Any water ionizer that produces molecular hydrogen is beneficial.

The $4,000 Enagic SD501 electric water ionizer produces more molecular hydrogen than other units that have been tested by the lab that I use for testing.

The $59 natural water ionizer pitcher that I had tested produced a range of results that varied from as high as 2.5 times as much molecular hydrogen as the SD501 to slightly lower levels (which still matched or bettered the results of other electric water ionizers) over the life of the filter.

Even an alkaline water dummy can figure this one out.