Hawkers of “ionizer” water machines (like Kangen) claim healing alkaline water benefits; skeptics call it snake oil. They both may be wrong.
Alkaline Water: A Scam?
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Is alkaline water a scam? There are thousands of websites and pyramid schemes hawking $6,000 machines to alkalinize our tap water into “miracle healing water.” And not just any miracle healing water, but, “magical miracle healing water.” With, no surprise, miraculous properties, “one of the [supposed] greatest health advances in human history,” the “secret to optimal health and longevity!”
Though if you actually scroll down, you’ll see the disclaimer that they’re “not allowed to claim [their] water will actually do any of these things…Does our water actually help to restore the body to a youthful condition? We can’t say.”
The skeptics are skeptical. Alkaline water is described as an incredible fraud, foisted on the public by desperate, deluded, glue-sniffing wannabes, asserting that “there’s no credible evidence in the…scientific literature [that there are any particular benefits]. It turns out that they’re both wrong.
A new study found that, compared to a control group drinking regular water, young adults drinking about a quart of alkalinized water a day dropped their bad cholesterol 10% within two months—that’s pretty impressive. And older women may achieve a drop of nearly 15%—that’s huge! It even helped their blood sugars.
If you and your doctor want to give it a try, you can make alkaline water this way [cha-ching] or, this way. By adding three-quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda to a liter (or quart) of water, you can save yourself $5,999.99.
Now, baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so this would add about a gram of sodium to our daily diet. But sodium bicarb doesn’t seem to have the same effect as sodium chloride, or table salt. In this study, those drinking the baking soda water had no change in blood pressure, and the other study actually found that they enjoyed a significant improvement in their blood pressure. But your physician will want to keep an eye on it.
So, alkaline water machines are indeed a scam, but alkaline water itself may not be.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Peter Mellor.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Schoppen S, Pérez-Granados AM, Carbajal A, Oubiña P, Sánchez-Muniz FJ, Gómez-Gerique JA, Vaquero MP. A Sodium-Rich Carbonated Mineral Water Reduces Cardiovascular Risk in Postmenopausal Women. J Nutr. 2004 May;134(5):1058-63.
- Pérez-Granados AM, Navas-Carretero S, Schoppen S, Vaquero MP. Reduction in cardiovascular risk by sodium-bicarbonated mineral water in moderately hypercholesterolemic young adults. J Nutr Biochem. 2010 Oct;21(10):948-53.
Images thanks to szucker81 via Photobucket, Tahoemnts via Wikimedia Commons, and likeablerodent via Flickr. Sound effect thanks to daaaan.
Is alkaline water a scam? There are thousands of websites and pyramid schemes hawking $6,000 machines to alkalinize our tap water into “miracle healing water.” And not just any miracle healing water, but, “magical miracle healing water.” With, no surprise, miraculous properties, “one of the [supposed] greatest health advances in human history,” the “secret to optimal health and longevity!”
Though if you actually scroll down, you’ll see the disclaimer that they’re “not allowed to claim [their] water will actually do any of these things…Does our water actually help to restore the body to a youthful condition? We can’t say.”
The skeptics are skeptical. Alkaline water is described as an incredible fraud, foisted on the public by desperate, deluded, glue-sniffing wannabes, asserting that “there’s no credible evidence in the…scientific literature [that there are any particular benefits]. It turns out that they’re both wrong.
A new study found that, compared to a control group drinking regular water, young adults drinking about a quart of alkalinized water a day dropped their bad cholesterol 10% within two months—that’s pretty impressive. And older women may achieve a drop of nearly 15%—that’s huge! It even helped their blood sugars.
If you and your doctor want to give it a try, you can make alkaline water this way [cha-ching] or, this way. By adding three-quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda to a liter (or quart) of water, you can save yourself $5,999.99.
Now, baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so this would add about a gram of sodium to our daily diet. But sodium bicarb doesn’t seem to have the same effect as sodium chloride, or table salt. In this study, those drinking the baking soda water had no change in blood pressure, and the other study actually found that they enjoyed a significant improvement in their blood pressure. But your physician will want to keep an eye on it.
So, alkaline water machines are indeed a scam, but alkaline water itself may not be.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Peter Mellor.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Schoppen S, Pérez-Granados AM, Carbajal A, Oubiña P, Sánchez-Muniz FJ, Gómez-Gerique JA, Vaquero MP. A Sodium-Rich Carbonated Mineral Water Reduces Cardiovascular Risk in Postmenopausal Women. J Nutr. 2004 May;134(5):1058-63.
- Pérez-Granados AM, Navas-Carretero S, Schoppen S, Vaquero MP. Reduction in cardiovascular risk by sodium-bicarbonated mineral water in moderately hypercholesterolemic young adults. J Nutr Biochem. 2010 Oct;21(10):948-53.
Images thanks to szucker81 via Photobucket, Tahoemnts via Wikimedia Commons, and likeablerodent via Flickr. Sound effect thanks to daaaan.
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Alkaline Water: A Scam?
LicenciaCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
URLNota del Doctor
This is the first video on my Latest in Clinical Nutrition volume 6 DVD. Be sure to check out all my other videos on nutrition myths.
For more context, check out my associated blog post: Stool Size and Breast Cancer Risk.
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