Alkaline Water a Scam?

[eytonxav]

I thought it was a bunch of quackery, but perhaps not:

https://brinkzone.com/alkaline-water-total-scam-or-health-promoting-drink/

 

[JoeWras]

TL-DR just scanned. But I want to say all I need to do is open my tap. My municipality makes the water slightly alkaline. So we get it (weakly) for free!

They do this to avoid lead leaching and copper pipe disintegration. The natural water here is slightly acid and will eat copper pipes over a period of a few decades.

 

[Kathe555]

It seems to me (from my chemistry classes) that if you want alkaline water, all you have to do is add a little baking soda. No need to purchase expensive bottled water.

What am I missing?

 

[CardsFan]

I think this was posted elsewhere in the forum, but it applies:

If you are still buying Smart Water, it's not working!

 

[eytonxav]

It seems to me (from my chemistry classes) that if you want alkaline water, all you have to do is add a little baking soda. No need to purchase expensive bottled water.

What am I missing?

That makes sense to me, although I do not know what the proper/safe mix would be.

I think this was posted elsewhere in the forum, but it applies:

If you are still buying Smart Water, it's not working!

Smart Water I believe is a bit different, and supposedly has electrolytes and minerals. If I am outdoors playing softball, I consume Gatorade which works for me.

 

[sengsational]

It's trivial to make tap water alkaline, as mentioned, so when I heard of alkaline water, I dismissed it. But I think Ray Kurzweil was a proponent, and I respect his views, in general. It would seem that food would completely overpower those relatively few ions in the water.

One way to really change the pH of your body is to use breathing techniques. It's only temporary, but it's apparently measurable. I've never tried measuring it, and don't even know how they do it, but if I understood what I read in some medical journal article and my memory isn't feeding me BS, it's a "thing".

 

[JoeWras]

One way to really change the pH of your body is to use breathing techniques. It's only temporary, but it's apparently measurable.

A major plot point of the movie version of The Andromeda Strain revolves around this. An important character gets exposed and "vaccinates" himself by breathing heavily.

 

[MichaelB]

This opens a whole new category for pick-up lines.

“Hey, let’s breathe heavy together and vaccinate each other.”

 

[JoeWras]

This opens a whole new category for pick-up lines.

“Hey, let’s breathe heavy together and vaccinate each other.”

 

[O2Bfree]

DH and I tried drinking baking soda water before cardio and to counteract the acidic effect of coffee and a few other beverages. This is anecdotal I suppose, but after a couple weeks DH had some GI issues and I got a UTI. The article mentions GI issues, but not UTIs. Apparently, it's good to have slightly acidic urine as UTIs can be encouraged by alkaline urine:

https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/6/Supplement_2/S535/5605266

Patients with alkaline urine were more likely to have recurrence of UTI (8.3% vs. 4.3%).

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

Grad school marketing class made us sell ionized alkaline water. We had to write the verbal pitch and deliver it. I vividly recall the research saying it gave you diarrhea and we had to point this out and gloss over it simultaneously. Always figured if you could sell water that causes diarrhea you could sell anything

 

[Walt34]

Always figured if you could sell water that causes diarrhea you could sell anything

I had a BIL who was a salesman, and once sold an Electrolux vacuum cleaner to a woman who did not even have electricity.


Okay, the backstory: He knew the vacuums were about to increase in price AND that in a month the woman's house would have electricity courtesy of the TVA. But without those little details it made a good story.