Alkaline Water – Health or Hype?
In case you have not heard, alkaline water is the latest craze in Los Angeles. There is a place on Main Street that cells it with lines out the door. The health claims of alkaline water are vast:
- Get rid of acid in the body caused by stress, pollution and the Western diet
- Say goodbye to disease by using this natural antioxidant
The claims of alkaline water will lead you to believe it is the fountain of youth and can solve many of your ills and health issues.
I’ve heard about alkaline water for a long time and have just not wanted to think about it, blog about it or talk about it but it’s staring me in the face so over the last 2 weeks I’ve done a vast amount of reading and research and here are my thoughts:
Alkaline water is a multi-level marketing scheme. It includes buying ionizer machines are extremely costly that supposedly put water through a process called electrolysis, which changes the pH of the water. Proponents of alkaline water say making the water more alkaline will cure anything from diabetes to cancer.
Can this truly be helpful? Let’s start with understanding the pH scale, which goes from 0 to 14.
From my chemistry days I learned that anything below a pH of 7 is considered acidic and anything above is alkaline with 7 being neutral.
Our bodies live in an extremely narrow pH range, and if they changed it could make us extremely sick or compromise our lives.
I also have to turn to mother nature and know that no naturally occurring alkaline water exists and millions of years of evolution can’t be completely off.
The stomach is an acid environment and no specific food or beverage can alter that. As food leaves your stomach and enters your intestine food becomes neutral from pancreatic secretions to become more alkaline.
The internal structures of your cells live in a certain pH zone and interfering with that can be cause for health problems.
For example, with kidney disease your body cannot regulate the pH balance and poisons can accumulate in your bloodstream, eventually causing death unless one has dialysis.
Our bodies are so finely tuned to be in a certain range that to think changing the pH of your water could be the fountain of youth is just magical thinking. And if you still think it could help I have some swampland in Ohio that needs a buyer.
Perhaps another option is to fuel your body with the purist whole foods that are not man-made – fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds, grass-fed meat, fish, pastured chicken/eggs, organic dairy and naturally occurring water.
I’ll drink to that!
