I came across an article about the benefits of drinking alkaline water and that really surprise me.
I understand that if the human body is made 70 % of water, it is logical to go down that path in attempt of anti-agng and overall health improvement.
But also, pure water has a ph of 7.0 and is therefore neutral, if nature did that it has to be for a reason.
Im just checking if any of you here that have better nutritional knowledge than i do, can share their opinon on that because it sure is intriguing.
You probably read about something that is misleadingly called "alkalized" water. It might be called "electrolyzed" or "reduced" water in more scientific circles. While it may be slightly over pH 7, its activity appears to involve free radicals or possibly oxygen nanobubbles (
http://pmid.us/18977493 ). Here's a paper that talks about "active hydrogen" (hydrated mono-atomic hydrogen?)
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1997 May 8;234(1):269-74.
Electrolyzed-reduced water scavenges active oxygen species and protects DNA from oxidative damage.
Shirahata S, Kabayama S, Nakano M, Miura T, Kusumoto K, Gotoh M, Hayashi H, Otsubo K, Morisawa S, Katakura Y.
Institute of Cellular Regulation Technology, Graduate School of Genetic Resources Technology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. sirahata@grt.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Active oxygen species or free radicals are considered to cause extensive oxidative damage to biological macromolecules, which brings about a variety of diseases as well as aging. The ideal scavenger for active oxygen should be 'active hydrogen'. 'Active hydrogen' can be produced in reduced water near the cathode during electrolysis of water. Reduced water exhibits high pH, low dissolved oxygen (DO), extremely high dissolved molecular hydrogen (DH), and extremely negative redox potential (RP) values. Strongly electrolyzed-reduced water, as well as ascorbic acid, (+)-catechin and tannic acid, completely scavenged O.-2 produced by the hypoxanthine-xanthine oxidase (HX-XOD) system in sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.0). The superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activity of reduced water is stable at 4 degrees C for over a month and was not lost even after neutralization, repeated freezing and melting, deflation with sonication, vigorous mixing, boiling, repeated filtration, or closed autoclaving, but was lost by opened autoclaving or by closed autoclaving in the presence of tungsten trioxide which efficiently adsorbs active atomic hydrogen. Water bubbled with hydrogen gas exhibited low DO, extremely high DH and extremely low RP values, as does reduced water, but it has no SOD-like activity. These results suggest that the SOD-like activity of reduced water is not due to the dissolved molecular hydrogen but due to the dissolved atomic hydrogen (active hydrogen). Although SOD accumulated H2O2 when added to the HX-XOD system, reduced water decreased the amount of H2O2 produced by XOD. Reduced water, as well as catalase and ascorbic acid, could directly scavenge H2O2. Reduce water suppresses single-strand breakage of DNA b active oxygen species produced by the Cu(II)-catalyzed oxidation of ascorbic acid in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting that reduced water can scavenge not only O2.- and H2O2, but also 1O2 and .OH.
PMID: 9169001
Another paper:
Biophys Chem. 2004 Jan 1;107(1):71-82.
The mechanism of the enhanced antioxidant effects against superoxide anion radicals of reduced water produced by electrolysis.
Hanaoka K, Sun D, Lawrence R, Kamitani Y, Fernandes G.
Bio-REDOX Laboratory Inc. 1187-4, Oaza-Ueda, Ueda-shi, Nagano-ken 386-0001, Japan. hanak@rapid.ocn.ne.jp
We reported that reduced water produced by electrolysis enhanced the antioxidant effects of proton donors such as ascorbic acid (AsA) in a previous paper. We also demonstrated that reduced water produced by electrolysis of 2 mM NaCl solutions did not show antioxidant effects by itself. We reasoned that the enhancement of antioxidant effects may be due to the increase of the ionic product of water as solvent. The ionic product of water (pKw) was estimated by measurements of pH and by a neutralization titration method. As an indicator of oxidative damage, Reactive Oxygen Species- (ROS) mediated DNA strand breaks were measured by the conversion of supercoiled phiX-174 RF I double-strand DNA to open and linear forms. Reduced water had a tendency to suppress single-strand breakage of DNA induced by reactive oxygen species produced by H2O2/Cu (II) and HQ/Cu (II) systems. The enhancement of superoxide anion radical dismutation activity can be explained by changes in the ionic product of water in the reduced water.
PMID: 14871602
There is something going on with this stuff that goes way beyond simple pH. The people who push it on the Internet mostly do not have a clue what they are dealing with. They describe it using grotesquely incorrect language, making it look like a complete scam.
Edited by niner, 15 August 2009 - 12:44 AM.