Kangen Water

[Christine L]

There is a lady in the office who has been after me for several months to start drinking this. She claims it cures many kinds of health problems and will make you sleep soundly.

I asked my husband and he said it is "total bullshit".

But she keeps talking to me about it and sent a guy over today from another building who claims it cured his prostate problem and arthritis. Now she is talking about other people I know and claiming they have been cured of various things like GERD, fatigue, etc.

Anybody have experience with this?

[chunkyfrog]

Once any water hits your stomach, it becomes acidic, because of stomach acid.
Alkaline water is just another of those silly things unscrupulous people
invent to milk foolish people out of their money. Don't fall for it.
--And I imagine your co-worker hopes to be generously compensated to promote this snake oil.
Personally, I would rather take nutritional advice from Adam Savage.

[archangle]

It's multi level marketing. The people involved have to get other people to sign up and be distributors to make big bucks. Do you trust your friendly office Amway, HerbaLife, or miracle dietary supplement salesman?

Do a little Googling. http://www.alkalinewaterionizers.org/co ... expensive/

[LSAT]

Your husband is correct....

[Krelvin]

Smoke and mirrors...

http://www.apswater.com/article.asp?id= ... le+Science
http://www.precisionnutrition.com/alkal ... it-or-hoax
http://www.alkalinewaterionizers.org/co ... expensive/
http://www.kcet.org/living/food/food-ra ... -scam.html
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html

It is a way to part you from your money...

[chunkyfrog]

--and they've got plenty of shills (the markup must be spectacular)
--even Dr. Oz, the original fad medical pimp.
Is the name from Frank Baum? What a joke if it were!

[grayghost4]

My sister-in-law is promoting products form a company that said "magnets" were the cure for everything ... they had magnet insoles for shoes , magnet bed pads to make you sleep better and cure arthritis, a water dispenser that had magnets in it .... it is also a multi-level marketing scam !

I think it was P,T. Barnum that said "there is a sucker born every minute" or something like that.

[Captain_Midnight]

I did a quickie search on PubMed using "Kangen" and "ionized water" as key search terms.

Zilch.

Thus, this is likely a grand hoax, and the office peeps who claim to be cured of their various maladies are apparently (to be kind) remarkably gullible and impressionable. (And for the scary news, they can vote.)

.

[HoseCrusher]

Let's throw a little science at this...

The body tries to control pH and keeps it in a very narrow range. To do so it utilizes various nutrients. These nutrients generally come from your diet.

IF your diet is not well balanced... and IF you "overdose" on acidic foods and drinks...

there is a possibility that drinking something alkaline could offer temporary help but the body will quickly adjust.

On top of that placebo is a very strong "drug" and if you firmly believe that drinking alkaline water will help, it probably will. At least for a period of time.

Informal blood testing has shown that if you measure the pH of blood before drinking about a pint of alkaline water and then compare it with a blood draw about 10 minutes after drinking you will see a slight drop in pH of the blood. However 10 minutes later it is back to where it was before.

If you believe you can help health issues during this roughly 10 minute time frame, then it will be beneficial...

[glarnold]

Very well put !

[JimP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_luHF6CA8A8

If the link gets deleted, google kangen water and look for the youtube link for CBS News. At the end of the cip, the announcer states that a doctor was concerned that loading your body with alkaline water would cause problems elsewhere in your body and that there are no State secrets in medicine.

[chunkyfrog]

If you do search the topic, there is an abundance of "endorsements"--many from so-called "doctors".
Bear in mind that anyone can assume any title (Dr. Rana ) online--remember downloading Rescan?

[archangle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_luHF6CA8A8

If the link gets deleted, google kangen water and look for the youtube link for CBS News. At the end of the cip, the announcer states that a doctor was concerned that loading your body with alkaline water would cause problems elsewhere in your body and that there are no State secrets in medicine.

That's a fluff piece by some local news outfit that just repeated the advertising and advertising demo that the people selling the water did. The demonstration was things like showing the alkaline water turned some chemicals blue while other water turned it white, and had something about dipping tomatoes in the alkaline water. Then they had some text on the end by some doctor. Then someone put it on YouTube with the title "Kangen Water myth EXPOSED on CBS News".

Sounds to me like a neat trick to distract someone looking to bury the negative information by planting bogus negative information to screw up search results. To me, bogus negative information like this is a bigger red flag than unadulterated negative information.

If pH balance was a big deal, there are lots of really cheap ways to change the pH of your water.

[archangle]

If you do search the topic, there is an abundance of "endorsements"--many from so-called "doctors".
Bear in mind that anyone can assume any title (Dr. Rana ) online--remember downloading Rescan?

Unless they're doing long term, peer reviewed studies, the opinion of a doctor doesn't mean that much for something like this. Your run of the mill MD doesn't have a good understanding of properly designed experiments or statistical studies. Or even science for that matter. A lot of modern medicine is rote learning and assembly line medicine. Look at how badly many doctors manage apnea and CPAP.

[chunkyfrog]

I'd like to think that "real" doctors actually went to school somewhere.
--but I am leery of the sheepskins issued by tropical island "schools".