pH is a measurement of the relative concentration of positive and negative ions.  When they are present in equal quantities we have reached a state of equilibrium within the body and our pH will be 7.0.  There are two ways to measure body pH, which should not be confused with blood pH.  The blood always maintains pH between 7.25 – 7.45.  If it falls out of that range the body will quickly go into shock and death will follow soon after.  Anything that does get into the bloodstream outside of that pH is immediately pushed out into the body’s tissue.

Body pH
The pH of saliva and urine is a much more accurate measure of overall body pH.  I believe that the pH of the body should be approximately 7.0, which is neutral.  There are many opinions of what the pH of the body should actually be.  I have read as low as 6.3 and as high as 7.2.  If you are sick your body pH will be low.  The sicker you are the lower your body pH will be.  For instance, if you have advanced cancer your body pH will most likely be near 5.0.

Tools for measuring pH
Body pH can be measured using pH paper, pH indicator liquid (phenol red) or a digital pH meter in which a probe is placed into a liquid that measures the electrical resistance of positive and negative electrons in the water.  These are quite accurate for measuring body pH, however digital pH meters require constant calibration.

Measuring with Saliva
The mouth tends to be slightly alkaline, which is why it is a poor barometer of the overall pH of the body.  The saliva is a more accurate measure of the body from the waist up, which includes the upper digestive tract.  Therefore, it is not a good measure of overall body pH.  pH test strips are the only way to test saliva pH.  Many elderly people have a very alkaline mouth, more than the average person, because they no longer produce hydrochloric acid (HCL) in their stomach which has caused their mouths to become more and more alkaline.  Medical professionals often mistakenly see the high pH of their elderly patients and believe they are too alkaline.  This is a good example of why we should not use saliva as a barometer of the body’s true pH.

Measuring with Urine
Many things can affect body pH throughout each day, such as diet and stress levels.  In order to get an accurate determination of body pH, the urine should be measured first thing in the morning each day for at least one week, although a month would better.  As you continue to measure your pH each morning, a profile, or “moving average,” will emerge that will be far more accurate than taking a single reading.  Urine pH can be measured using pH paper, pH indicator liquid (phenol red) or a digital pH meter.

Whenever we attempt to determine whether there is life as we know it on Mars or other planets, scientists first seek to establish whether or not water is present. Why? Because life on earth totally depends on water.

A High percentage of living things, both plant and animal are found in water. All life on earth is thought to have arisen from water. The bodies of all living organisms are composed largely of water. About 70 to 90 percent of all organic matter is water.

The chemical reactions in all plants and animals that support life take place in a water medium. Water not only provides the medium to make these life sustaining reactions possible, but water itself is often an important reactant or product of these reactions. In short, the chemistry of life is water chemistry.

Water, the universal solvent

Water is a universal, superb solvent due to the marked polarity of the water molecule and its tendency to form hydrogen bonds with other molecules. One water molecule, expressed with the chemical symbol H2O, consists of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom.

Standing alone, the hydrogen atom contains one positive proton at its core with one negative electron revolving around it in a three-dimensional shell. Oxygen, on the other hand, contains 8 protons in its nucleus with 8 electrons revolving around it. This is often shown in chemical notation as the letter O surrounded by eight dots representing 4 sets of paired electrons.

The single hydrogen electron and the 8 electrons of oxygen are the key to the chemistry of life because this is where hydrogen and oxygen atoms combine to form a water molecule, or split to form ions.

Hydrogen tends to ionize by losing its single electron and form single H+ ions which are simply isolated protons since the hydrogen atom contains no neutrons. A hydrogen bond occurs when the electron of a single hydrogen atom is shared with another electronegative atom such as oxygen that lacks an electron.

Polarity of water molecules

In a water molecule, two hydrogen atoms are covalently bonded to the oxygen atom. But because the oxygen atom is larger than the hydrogens, its attraction for the hydrogen’s electrons is correspondingly greater so the electrons are drawn closer into the shell of the larger oxygen atom and away from the hydrogen shells. This means that although the water molecule as a whole is stable, the greater mass of the oxygen nucleus tends to draw in all the electrons in the molecule including the shared hydrogen electrons giving the oxygen portion of the molecule a slight electronegative charge.

The shells of the hydrogen atoms, because their electrons are closer to the oxygen, take on a small electropositive charge. This means water molecules have a tendency to form weak bonds with water molecules because the oxygen end of the molecule is negative and the hydrogen ends are positive.  A hydrogen atom, while remaining covalently bonded to the oxygen of its own molecule, can form a weak bond with the oxygen of another molecule. Similarly, the oxygen end of a molecule can form a weak attachment with the hydrogen ends of other molecules. Because water molecules have this polarity, water is a continuous chemical entity.

These weak bonds play a crucial role in stabilizing the shape of many of the large molecules found in living matter. Because these bonds are weak, they are readily broken and re-formed during normal physiological reactions. The disassembly and re-arrangement of such weak bonds is in essence the chemistry of life.

To illustrate water’s ability to break down other substances, consider the simple example of putting a small amount of table salt in a glass of tap water. With dry salt (NaCl) the attraction between the electropositive sodium (Na+) and electronegative chlorine (Cl-) atoms of salt is very strong until it is placed in water. After salt is placed in water, the attraction of the electronegative oxygen of the water molecule for the positively charged sodium ions, and the similar attraction of the electropositive hydrogen ends of the water molecule for the negatively charged chloride ions, are greater than the mutual attraction between the outnumbered Na+ and Cl- ions. In water the ionic bonds of the sodium chloride molecule are broken easily because of the competitive action of the numerous water molecules.

As we can see from this simple example, even the delicate configuration of individual water molecules enables them to break relatively stronger bonds by converging on them. This is why we call water the universal solvent. It is a natural solution that breaks the bonds of larger, more complex molecules. This is the chemistry of life on earth, in water and on land.

Oxidation-reduction reactions

Basically, reduction means the addition of an electron (e-), and its converse, oxidation means the removal of an electron. The addition of an electron, reduction, stores energy in the reduced compound. The removal of an electron, oxidation, liberates energy from the oxidized compound. Whenever one substance is reduced, another is oxidized.

To clarify these terms, consider any two molecules, A and B, for example.

When molecules A and B come into contact, here is what happens:

• B grabs an electron from molecule A.  Molecule A has been oxidized because it has lost an electron.
• The net charge of B has been reduced because it has gained a negative electron (e-).

In biological systems, removal or addition of an electron constitutes the most frequent mechanism of oxidation-reduction reactions. These oxidation-reduction reactions are frequently called redox reactions.

Acids and Bases

An acid is a substance that increases the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in water. A base is a substance that decreases the concentration of hydrogen ions, in other words, increasing the concentration of hydroxide ions OH-.  The degree of acidity or alkalinity of a solution is measured in terms of a value known as pH, which is the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydrogen ions:

pH = 1/log[H+] = -log[H+]

What is pH?

On the pH scale, which ranges from 0 on the acidic end to 14 on the alkaline end, a solution is neutral if its pH is 7. At pH 7, water contains equal concentrations of H+ and OH- ions. Substances with a pH less than 7 are acidic because they contain a higher concentration of H+ ions. Substances with a pH higher than 7 are alkaline because they contain a higher concentration of OH- than H+. The pH scale is a log scale so a change of one pH unit means a tenfold change in the concentration of hydrogen ions.

Importance of balancing pH

Living things are extremely sensitive to pH and function best (with certain exceptions, such as certain portions of the digestive tract) when solutions are nearly neutral. Most interior living matter (excluding the cell nucleus) has a pH of about 6.8.

Blood plasma and other fluids that surround the cells in the body have a pH of 7.2 to 7.3. Numerous special mechanisms aid in stabilizing these fluids so that cells will not be subject to appreciable fluctuations in pH. Substances which serve as mechanisms to stabilize pH are called buffers. Buffers have the capacity to bond ions and remove them from solution whenever their concentration begins to rise. Conversely, buffers can release ions whenever their concentration begins to fall. Buffers thus help to minimize the fluctuations in pH. This is an important function because many biochemical reactions normally occurring in living organisms either release or use up ions.  NOTE: Dr. Hayashi is a Heart Specialist and Director of the Water Institute of Japan.
Dr. Hayashi has no affiliation with the Good Water Company.

Oxygen: Too much of a good thing? Oxygen is essential to survival. It is relatively stable in the air, but when too much is absorbed into the body it can become active and unstable and has a tendency to attach itself to any biological molecule, including molecules of healthy cells. The chemical activity of these free radicals is due to one or more pairs of unpaired electrons.

About 2% of the oxygen we normally breathe becomes active oxygen, and this amount increases to approximately 20% with aerobic exercise.

Such free radicals with unpaired electrons are unstable and have a high oxidation potential, which means they are capable of stealing electrons from other cells. This chemical mechanism is very useful in disinfectants such as hydrogen peroxide and ozone which can be used to sterilize wounds or medical instruments. Inside the body these free radicals are of great benefit due to their ability to attack and eliminate bacteria, viruses and other waste products.

Active Oxygen in the body

Problems arise, however, when too many of these free radicals are turned loose in the body where they can also damage normal tissue.  Putrefaction sets in when microbes in the air invade the proteins, peptides, and amino acids of eggs, fish and meat. The result is an array of unpleasant substances such as:

• Hydrogen sulfide  Ammonia  Histamines  Indoles  Phenols
• Scatoles

These substances are also produced naturally in the digestive tract when we digest food, resulting in the unpleasant odor evidenced in feces. Putrefaction of spoiled food is caused by microbes in the air; this natural process is duplicated in the digestive tract by intestinal microbes. All these waste products of digestion are pathogenic, that is, they can cause disease in the body.  Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia are tissue toxins that can damage the liver. Histamines contribute to allergic disorders such as atopic dermatitis, urticaria (hives) and asthma. Indoles and phenols are considered carcinogenic.  Because waste products such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, histamines, phenols and indoles are toxic, the body’s defense mechanisms try to eliminate them by releasing neutrophils (a type of leukocyte, or white corpuscle). These neutrophils produce active oxygen, oddball oxygen molecules that are capable of scavenging disintegrating tissues by gathering electrons from the molecules of toxic cells.  Problems arise, however, when too many of these active oxygen molecules, or free radicals, are produced in the body. They are extremely reactive and can also attach themselves to normal, healthy cells and damage them genetically. These active oxygen radicals steal electrons from normal, healthy biological molecules. This electron theft by active oxygen oxidizes tissue and can cause disease.
Because active oxygen can damage normal tissue, it is essential to scavenge this active oxygen from the body before it can cause disintegration of healthy tissue. If we can find an effective method to block the oxidation of healthy tissue by active oxygen, then we can attempt to prevent disease.

Antioxidants block dangerous oxidation

One way to protect healthy tissue from the ravages of oxidation caused by active oxygen is to provide free electrons to active oxygen radicals, thus neutralizing their high oxidation potential and preventing them from reacting with healthy tissue.  Research on the link between diet and cancer is far from complete, but some evidence indicates that what we eat may affect our susceptibility to cancer. Some foods seem to help defend against cancer, others appear to promote it.  Much of the damage caused by carcinogenic substances in food may come about because of an oxidation reaction in the cell. In this process, an oddball oxygen molecule may damage the cell’s genetic code. Some researchers believe that substances that prevent oxidation — called ANTIOXIDANTS — can block the damage. This leads naturally to the theory that the intake of natural antioxidants could be an important aspect of the body’s defense against cancer. Substances that some believe inhibit cancer include vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, selenium, and glutathione (an amino acid). These substance are reducing agents. They supply electrons to free radicals and block the interaction of the free radical with normal tissue.

How we can avoid illness

As we mentioned earlier, the presence of toxic waste products such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, histamines, indoles, phenols and scatoles impart an offensive odor to human feces. In the medical profession, it is well known that patients suffering from hepatitis and cirrhosis pass particularly odoriferous stools.  Excessively offensive stools caused by the presence of toxins are indicators of certain diseases, and the body responds to the presence of these toxins by producing neutrophil leukocytes to release active oxygen in an attempt to neutralize the damage to organs that can be caused by such waste products. But when an excess amount of such active oxygen is produced, it can damage healthy cells as well as neutralize toxins. This leads us to the conclusion that we can minimize the harmful effect of these active oxygen radicals by reducing them with an ample supply of electrons.

Water . . . the natural solution

There is no substitute for a healthy balanced diet, especially rich in antioxidant materials such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and other foods that are good for us. However, these substances are not the best source of free electrons that can block the oxidation of healthy tissue by active oxygen.  Water treated by electrolysis to increase its reduction potential is the best solution to the problem of providing a safe source of free electrons to block the oxidation of normal tissue by free oxygen radicals. We believe that reduced water, water with an excess of free electrons to donate to active oxygen, is the best solution because:

• The reduction potential of water can be dramatically increased over other antioxidants in food or vitamin supplements.
• The molecule weight of reduced water is low, making it fast acting and able to reach all tissues of the body in a very short time.

Oxidized Water

Oxidized water with its redox potential of +1100 mV is an oxidizing agent that can withdraw electrons from bacteria and kill them. The oxidized water from the Water Ionizer unit can be used to clean hands, kitchen utensils, fresh vegetables and fruits, and to sterilize cutting boards and minor wounds. Tests have shown that oxidized water can be used effectively to treat athlete’s foot, minor burns, insect bites, scratches, and so on.  Other apparatus are capable of producing super oxide water with a redox potential of +1,100 mV or more, and a pH lower than 2.7. Tests have shown that this superoxide water can quickly destroy MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).  Although super oxide water is a powerful sterilizing agent, it won’t harm the skin. In fact, it can be used to heal. Superoxide water has proven effective in American and Japanese hospitals in the treatment of bedsores and operative wounds with complicated infections.  Another application of superoxide water is in the field of agriculture where it has been used effectively on plants to kill fungi and other plant diseases. Superoxide water is non-toxic, so agricultural workers can apply it without wearing special protective equipment because there is no danger of skin or respiratory damage. An added benefit of using superoxide water to spray plants is that there is no danger to the environment caused by the accumulation of toxic chemicals in the ground.

Even advocates of the importance of vitamin C in diet staples have to admit that its potency, namely, the redox potential of this important vitamin, rapidly diminishes with age and preparation for the dining table. Carbohydrates, the main consistent of vegetables and fruit, has a molecular weight of 180 whereas water has a much lower molecular weight of 18.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Upstream and downstream theory

Prevent disease at the source

According to Dr. Hidemitsu Hayashi, Director of the Water Institute of Japan, “To eliminate the pollutants in a large stream that is contaminated at its source, we must work on the problems upstream at the headwaters — the source of the pollution — not downstream where we can only try to treat the evidence of damage caused by the pollution.”

Upstream

According to our model, we consider the digestive tract upstream where we intake water and food. Although many people today in developed countries are growing more skeptical about what they eat, they tend to concentrate more on what the food contains rather than the metabolized products of foods in the digestive tract.

Upstream

For example, consider the typical balanced diet of meat and vegetables. Meat protein is metabolized into amines while nitrates from fertilizers used to grow vegetables metabolize into nitrites in the digestive tract. These amines and nitrites combine to form nitrosamine, a recognized carcinogen.  We’ve already discussed that odoriferous feces are evidence of excessive fermentation in the digestive tract, so reduced water performs a very important function upstream in the digestive tract by reducing this excessive fermentation as evidenced by cleaner stools within days of starting a steady regimen of reduced water.

Downstream

Downstream

Downstream from the digestive tract, starting at the liver, reduced water quickly enters the liver and other organs due to, first, its lower molecular weight, and, secondly, the size of its clusters. At tissue sites throughout the body, reduced water with its safe, yet potent reduction potential readily donates its passenger electrons freely to active oxygen and neutralizes them so they cannot damage the molecules of healthy cells. Normal cells are protected from the electron thievery of active oxygen and allowed to grow, mature, function and regenerate without interference from rogue, oddball oxygen radicals which tend to steal the electrons from the molecules of normal, healthy biological molecules.

The water boom

We are now in the midst of a water boom. In Japan and other countries consumers are buying various kinds of bottled and canned water even though water is one of our most abundant vital resources. Research data reveals that mineral waters may have an ORP of +200 mV, slightly lower than the general +400 mV measured for ordinary tap water. We can say that at least mineral water is marginally better than tap water from the viewpoint of ORP. Compared to any processed water for sale, however, Water Ionizers with its general reduction potential of -200 is beyond comparison due to its ability to scavenge active oxygen radicals.

Mr. Sang Whang is a successful inventor, scientist, and engineer. Mr. Whang has discovered a new theory of aging and reverse aging. He explains the health and aging processes in layman terms in his book, Reverse Aging. Below is an excerpt from that book. If you wish to purchase it, please see link at the bottom of this page.

INTRODUCTION

In order to learn how to get younger, we must understand the process of aging.

Handling natural health improvement devices developed in Japan a few years, I have witnessed as well as personally experienced many mysterious phenomenon in the reverse aging effect.

Being a scientist, engineer, and inventor, I have tried to understand and explain the phenomenon scientifically, applying the scientific principles of those non-drug, natural health improvement devices. During the course of the study, I came to a realization of what the human aging process is about. The great news is that, with this new theory, the reverse aging process can be explained, and ANYBODY CAN GET YOUNGER IF HE OR SHE SO DESIRES.

THE AGING PROCESS

We get old because we are not disposing of all the internally generated wastes and toxins, and accumulate the leftovers within our body.

For our body to function and to maintain body temperature, we burn nutrients within our cells. The main ingredients of all foods, expensive or inexpensive, gourmet or junk, vegetable or meat, alkaline or acid, are either carbohydrates, proteins or fats. And they are nothing but the combinations of four elements: carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen.

After these nutrients are burnt (oxidized) in the cells, they all turn into organic acids: carbonic acids, uric acids, lactic acids, fatty acids, ammonia, etc. Fats are acidic even before oxidation. The Chinese word for oxygen is written with two characters, “sahn-so”. They literally mean “acid root”.

These acidic wastes and toxins are disposed out of the body in liquid form, as urine or perspiration, after first being dissolved into the blood. Every element within our body was place there by the blood and can come out of there by first being dissolved into the blood and then being carried out. If anyone loses ten pounds by any dietary means, it can be said that most of that ten pounds came out through the urine.

Unfortunately, due to our life styles and environments (i.e., too much ingestion, overwork, over indulgence, not enough rest, staying up late, not enough exercise, inadequate water consumption, smoking, pollution, etc.) the body cannot get rid of all the acidic waste products that it generates within. We accumulate these left over waste products somewhere within our body. This is the process of getting old.

To make matters worse, mixed with these organic acids are inorganic acid minerals such as chlorine, phosphor, and sulfur that come in with most of our acidic foods: meats, grains and root crops. We don’t eat enough of alkaline foods such as fruits and vegetables that contain inorganic alkaline minerals: calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, etc.

Although the amounts of inorganic minerals are small compared with the organic acid wastes that the body produces, they contribute more towards the acid side. However, one important thing to note is that even if one does not eat any acidic food at all, as long as carbohydrates and proteins are consumed, the body produces much more acidic wastes than the inorganic alkaline minerals can counteract.

We are born with high alkaline blood pH of 7.44. As we get older, the blood pH drops down to 7.35 or below. The blood pH referred to here is the artery blood pH. The difference of 0.09 in pH value seems very small but since pH is logarithmic, the amount of hydroxyl ion (OH-) in 7.44 pH is 1.23 times that of 7.35 pH, because 10=1.2303.

The hydroxyl ion is an oxygen donor while the hydrogen ion (H+) is an oxygen taker. In other words, young people carry 23% more of the oxygen donors in their blood than older people. No wonder they are more energetic.

Uric acid is nearly insoluble in water, alcohol, and ether, but soluble in solutions of alkaline salts, In other words, it becomes soluble in alkaline water. Arthritis and gout are caused by uric acid deposited between the joints, non-dissolved due to the low alkalinity of an older person’s blood. Drinking acid free alkaline water will gradually elevate one’s blood pH and the gout will disappear naturally. (More about this acid free alkaline water later)

As we live with poor waste disposal systems for a long period of time, some parts of our body build up more acids than others, and they can clog up capillary vessels around those acidic areas. This causes some body organs to function in a sluggish manner. We feel tired and run down sometimes for no reason whatsoever, and adult diseases such as high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, asthma, allergies, etc. start to set in WE SIMPLY ACCEPT THESE PHENOMENA AS “GETTING OLD.”

In some extreme cases, the build up of acidic elements are so great that it starts to destroy healthy cells around them. Healthy cells must maintain a slightly alkaline pH level. Some cells change their formula in order to survive in an acidic environment. If they are successful, this is the beginning of cancer. Cancer cells are acidic while healthy cells are alkaline. Even if the cancerous tumors are completely removed surgically, as long as the acidic conditions in the area remain, the chances are that new tumors will develop around the same area.

Exactly where the left over waste products are accumulated may very according to every individual. However, the parts of the body where wastes accumulate first may determine what kind of adult disease that individual may develop first. Within one family, the storage places may be similar. This may explain the hereditary effects of certain adult diseases.

THE REVERSE AGING PROCESS

Because the accumulation of waste products inside the body is the aging process, helping the body to get rid of the OLD waste products is the reverse aging process.

This reverse aging process takes two steps. The first step is to develop a good disposal system and the second step is to pull out the old wastes from their hiding places.

Development of A Good Disposal System

Since, as mentioned before, the waste disposal is done in liquid form by urine and perspiration, it is imperative that we drink plenty of water, When one is going through any diet program, doctors tell him to drink 8 glasses of water a day. They know the disposal is through urine, but they don’t tell you what kind of water to drink.

Since all waste products are acidic, the best kind of water is acid free alkaline water. Drinking 4 glasses of this alkaline water is much more effective than 8 glasses of regular, bottled water or filtered tap water. There are devices called water ionizers that split alkaline minerals and acid minerals in regular tap water by electrical means.

A quality water ionizer takes in regular tap water which has both acid and alkaline minerals in it and has a typical pH value of 7. The system then releases water with a pH value of 9 or higher with all the alkaline minerals from the original tap water. At the same time it releases acidic water with a pH value of 5 or lower with all the acid minerals in the original tap water.

Since this alkaline water has twice as many alkaline minerals as the original water but NO acid minerals, it is more than twice as potent as the original water. Inside our body, it will neutralize only acidic elements and discharge them safely out of the body. Drinking 8 glasses of regular water can leach out acidic wastes as well as some valuable alkaline minerals such as potassium. That’s why doctors test your blood when you are going through a serious diet program. With this alkaline water, 4 glasses are sufficient and there is no worry about losing potassium from your system.

Order “Reverse Aging”, by Sang Whang

Want to stay healthy and look younger?

Your muscles are designed to work well only in a narrow range of almost zero acidity, according to Michael Colgan, PhD, in Optimum Sports Nutrition. Arterial blood works best with no acid at all. Acidity is measured by the concentration of hydrogen ions (pH). A pH of 7.0 is neutral, midway between very acidic (pH of 1) and very alkaline (pH of 14), he explained.

“The pH skill is water arithmetic, like the skill of earthquakes,” Coleman said. “So small changes in the numbers mean large differences in acidic E or alkaline 80. A pH of 6 is Ten times more acidic than a pH of 7. At rest, muscle pH is about 6.9, while arterial blood is about 7.4.”

As you begin to exercise, he continued, the increased use of muscle glycogen for energy produces lactic acid and pyruvic acid, to substances which contain a lot of hydrogen ions (H+), which drive muscle and blood pH down into the acid zone. (Incidentally, pH is derived from the French pouvoir hydrogene, meaning hydrogen power.)

Colgan goes on to say that the harder you exercise, the quicker you “go acid.” When muscle pH drops below 6.5, the acidity disrupts all sorts of links in the energy chain. For example, the enzyme phosphofructokinase is the rate limiting step in muscle use of glycogen. Below pH 6.5, it stops working altogether. And, he says, acidity also reduces muscle power directly by inhibiting the contractile action of muscle fibers.

“So,” Colgan added, “The first thing that a successful ergogenic supplement has to do is reduce the accumulation of acidity in exercising muscle. You can put all sorts of other chemicals into the bloodstream, but, unless you reduce acidity during exercise, your muscles will tie up.”

Another inhibitor of exercise, Colgan said, happening simultaneously with the accumulation of acid, is the accumulation of ammonia; anaerobic and endurance exercise produces a lot of it. Ammonia is toxic to cells, it reduces the formation of glycogen, and it inhibits the energy cycle.

He adds that, although we still do not know how much ammonia contributes to fatigue, we do know that the higher your blood ammonia, the poorer your performance.

Immediately after marathon races, triathlons or other endurance events, some athletes have very low blood phosphate levels, Colgan said. Even athletes with high resting phosphate levels show marked reductions after endurance exercise.

“How does this loss of phosphate damage performance?” Colgan asked. “First, there is a loss of acid buffering. Phosphate is a major alkaline buffer of muscle. Second, to make new muscle glycogen, your body has to use pyridoxal phosphate, a mix of phosphate and vitamin B6.”

Since many people, including athletes, do not consume enough alkaline rich foods, such as fruits, nuts and vegetables, but instead rely heavily on acid forming foods, such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, etc., they may be at risk for an acidic condition in their body fluids.

What quack watchers do best is plant doubt in our minds when we are trying to search out the truth about something such as a health issue. It’s easy to be a skeptic. It’s hard to be a believer and even harder to believe in things that others regularly ridicule. Quack Watchers often have a chilling effect on an open debate because of the way they often scoff at the issues they are challenging.

As a whole, we tend to believe the Quack Watchers because we want to believe that we can’t be so easily fooled. And it’s reassuring for us to believe that we are not so easily fooled. We enjoy hearing that the things that may sound a little weird or too good to be true of course could not be true. The most dangerous debunkers are the ones who have a background in science, but little or no experience at all with the subject that they are debunking. Many of the de-bunkers tend to be heavy on their opinion and light on the facts. In fact, they quite often present their opinion as gospel. For instance, when the interpretation of a photo is in question, their analysis is offered as fact, the final report.

I don’t expect the de-bunkers to go away. But we need to understand that many of the claims some have made are no more than one more opinion, not the Last Word. What bothers me is that so many of the debunkers serve nothing more than to confuse us. However, it becomes unsettling when we’re trying to determine the truth about crucial issues such as our health.

Quack Watchers denounce Lorraine Day, M.D. because she dares challenge the medical establishment and tell people that we can heal ourselves if we live on the right diet and have faith in God. They conclude from their Debunkdoms that someone is a crank when in fact they are someone they simply have profound differences with.

When a radical scientific concept is first introduced, there is commonly resistance to it by the prevailing scientific community of the time. New ideas are commonly ridiculed and derided because people become comfortable with ideas and they don’t want to change. Often, the members of the established community must die off so a new generation can be raised with the new concept and accept it from the beginning without any unnecessarily hand-wringing about what they once embraced as the truth that has now been shown to be superceded by the next wave of discovery. The new concept will no longer be described as radical.

My problem with one Quack Watcher is his ridiculous denunciation of Ionized Water as snake oil when, if fact, a staggering amount of research has been done on the effects of Ionized Water , which is produced by running filtered tap water over positive and negative electrodes that produce positive and negative ions in the water that are then separated. Thus, ionization produces two different waters at the same time, one alkaline the other acid.

All of the research done has arrived at the same conclusion: Ionized Water benefits everything it comes in contact with as long as its used correctly. (For instance, don’t drink acid water.) The Quack Watchers who denounce Ionized Water could not be more wrong about it since Ionized Water is one of the most phenomenal inventions of the 20th century for a number of reasons.

Their first mistake is to suggest that only purified water be consumed. Purified water is water without minerals produced by reverse osmosis (RO) or distillation. I have written extensively myself against the practice consuming purified water.

Water Ionizers are designed to be used with your tap water or bottled water. If you attempt to ionize purified, de-mineralized water, you will not get a change in pH nor will the ORP (oxidation reduction potential) change. Minerals must be present in the water for ionization to take place. With water that contains minerals, ionization changes both of these properties, pH and ORP. Read my article on Ionized Water for a more detailed explanation of its properties.

Ionized Water is very alkaline and helps balance the body’s pH. It is crucial to point out characteristic when it comes to those who would denounce Ionized Water because we must consume substances that are alkaline to maintain a balanced body pH. Few substances are more alkaline than Ionized Water with an adjustable pH of between 8 and 10 . When we acidify ourselves with a processed food diet and a stressful lifestyle, we open ourselves up to every disease imaginable. At a pH of 10, Ionized Water is 100 times more alkaline than the body should be at pH 7. To conclude that consuming a substance which is 100 times more alkaline than the body ought to be is not beneficial to our health is to demonstrate you know nothing about Ionized Water and body pH. The average person is much more acidic than she/he ought to be. Bodily acidity is the door to disease, the unraveling of our health. To ignore the incredible life-saving potentia l that high pH Ionized Water has to raise our overall body pH is to ignore the facts. Therefore, we need to put extremely alkaline substances into our body in order to offset this incredible acidity we create through poor diet, pollution and stress. Ionized Water has been demonstrated over and over again to raise body pH. How could it not? When we constantly consume soft drinks, which are extremely acid (pH 2.5 ~ approximately 50,000 times more acid than ideal body pH 7.0), we are dropping our body pH. When we consume Ionized Water slowly we raise our body pH until we are in homeostasis or balance.

The Quack Watcher states that the term Ionized Water is meaningless to him. Is he suggesting that ionization, a scientific principle, doesn’t exist? Or is he admitting that he doesn’t know what ionization is? Whether we believe in Ionized Water or not is irrelevant because it is a physical fact that cannot be denied. We can argue philosophy, but not physics and Ionized Water is chemistry and physics and what it does for the body and for our health is undeniable.

He suggests that Ionized Water is simply a placebo , something that we believe is going to change our health when in fact our mind is doing all the work. In other words, Ionized Water has no physiological affect on the body, only a psychological one, which certainly is not the case. Ionized Water balances the body pH and is a powerful antioxidant, hydrator and detoxifier.

This is our first clue that the debunker understands little if anything about Ionized Water. To ionize means to gain or lose an electron and water that has been ionized is water that has these characteristics, that of either having an extra or missing electron. We know this is true by the physical scientific measurements we can make regarding Ionized Water. We can measure changes that ionization causes with both a pH meter and ORP meter. On the alkaline side, the pH is elevated and the ORP is driven into the negative range, which counteracts the oxidation of the body when we consume it.

Tim Bolen runs a website called quackpotwatch.org that has dared to challenge these websites that denounce practically ANYTHING that is not wholly accepted by the medical establishment. In the world of the quack watchers, nothing in the universe is provable unless a double-blind study has been done on it. I often point out that there is absolutely no evidence of chronic disease in the wild, meaning that wild animals do not contract chronic diseases such as cancer, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure. I have challenged people to show me evidence of any chronic disease in the wild and no one has yet to produce any. Do we need a double-blind study to determine the obvious? Other than universities, the only industry capable and willing to perform double-blind studies is the pharmaceutical industry. Double-blind studies are enormously expensive, costing hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. The pharmaceutical indu stry is able to afford expensive studies such as these because it is very profitable for them. Studies lead to the release of medical drugs for all kinds of disease that make pharmaceuticals a lot of money. If taking drugs to control disease is the path that you have chosen so be it. But drugs and medicine do not lead to health. Alternative health and Wellness protocols are often natural and inexpensive. And since no one stands to make much money from them, double-blind studies are never done on “alternative cures” such as Ionized Water. Another example is the fact that I recommend people move toward a Raw Food Diet, which doesn’t cost much at all for someone to do. However, since no one is ever going to make large amounts of money from promoting raw foods, double-blind studies are never done.

The reason debunkers and quackwatchers spend their time on these websites is because they can be quite profitable. They appear as “expert witnesses” in lawsuits and they collect large fees for doing so. In essence, the intentions of quackwatchers are not to expose scams and fraud, but to denounce anything that the American Medical Association has not blessed. The Medical establishment can say and suggest almost anything and not worry about being challenged on it.

The detoxification effects alone are enough to make you realize that Ionized Water is not like any other water you will ever consume. Ionizing water changes the water molecule grouping structure so it is much smaller, hexagonal in shape, and therefore far more penetrating to body tissue and hydrating. And as it hydrates your body tissue, it pushes out all the things that do not belong in the body, which are commonly known as toxins . How water molecules group together is another thing that debunkers like to state does not happen and is so much more quackery, when in fact a huge amount of scientific research has been done on water-molecule clusters .

The debunker of Ionized Water who is found on the Internet could not have gotten it more wrong in every regard. He is a retired chemistry professor from Simon Fraser University in Canada and if he had bothered to examine the properties of Ionized Water he would have found that they are exactly as I describe them to be. He also would have found that they do exactly what I say they do inside the body. He discredits himself immensely when he states that Ionized Water is simply “snake-oil on tap”. History will humiliate him and Simon Fraser University should denounce any association with him. If they do not, then they are complicit in his denouncement of one of the greatest health advances in human history.

Those that would attack Ionized Water as being a hoax of some sort do not understand how important it is that we consume substances that are negatively charged and possess negative ions. Those who debunk Ionized Water have never consumed it. None that I have seen have ever read my first book, Confessions of a Body Builder, nor excerpts from my second book, Achieving Great Health in 90 Days or Less. In my eight years of studying and consuming Ionized Water (1.5 – 2.0 gallons per day), I have never found anything that Ionized Water doesn’t enhance and benefit as long as it’s used properly. Read what Ionized Water has done for me . And what you can expect from drinking Ionized Water .

Many articles have been written about Ionized Water. Dr. Hidemitsu Hayashi, a Heart Surgeon and Director of the Water Institute, Tokyo , Japan , wrote a 30 page article explaining Ionized Water in great detail . Dr. Hayashi describes Ionized Water in excruciating detail, including its precise chemistry during and after ionization. All this is completely ignored by the Quack Watcher who claims to be a chemist. When we don’t understand the rudimentary principles of how something functions, some of us tend to simply dismiss it out of ignorance. This is certainly the case with the debunker of Ionized Water because anyone with even the rudimentary knowledge of its chemistry will see that Ionized Water is exactly what the body requires: higher pH, strong antioxidant, negative charge, abundance of electrons, incredible hydration and detoxification properties.

If the debunker truly wanted to know if Ionized Water actually did anything to the human body one way or another, he would need to consume some for a few days or a week, but I can assure he has not. Debunkers are notorious for never trying what they denounce. They are part of a faux-intelligentsia that believes that all science can be explained on paper and therefore there is never a reason to actually test anything in the field. This is the biggest mistake that any scientist can ever make and, by his own admission, the debunker of Ionized Water has never touched a drop of it nor used a water ionizer to draw the scientific conclusions he has made. As with many of the debunkers, closer examination of them and their methods reveals who they are and that they themselves should be debunked.

pH (potential for Hydrogen): (chemistry) p(otential of) H(ydrogen); the logarithm of the reciprocal of hydrogen-ion concentration in gram atoms per liter; provides a measure on a scale from 0 to 14 of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution (where 7 is neutral and greater than 7 is acidic and less than 7 is basic)

ORP (oxidation reduction potential): The potential for one liquid substance to reduce the oxidation of another substance as measured in millivolts (mV).

However, what make this situation worse is that processed foods, fast foods and junk foods create an acidic condition in our bodies that over time becomes an ideal environment for diseases to start. For instance, cancer does not live well in an alkaline environment but flourishes in an acidic environment. What we consume either raises or lowers our body pH (pH relates to acidic and alkaline), which should be between 7.2-7.4 pH. For example a soft drink such as a cola has a pH of 2.7-3.0, which is extremely acidic! A soft drink with a pH of 3.0 is going to have a much higher pH after it has passed through the body; it is going to have close to the same pH as your body, about 7.0. It reached that pH level by stealing precious minerals and fluids from your body! Putting soft drinks and other high acid foods in your body lowers your body’s pH making it more acidic, thus more suseptible to disease. It does not gi ve you disease; rather it helps to create the ideal environment for any disease that may come along to get a foothold, may it be environmental, genetic, diet related or by other means. The vast majority of cancer patients possess a very low body pH, ranging from 6.0-5.0 or lower. Our bodies simply can not fight disease if the our body pH is not properly balanced.

In short, our diet is killing us. One in three people in the United States will get cancer in their lifetime. These are staggering statistics, yet if you look at the rise of processed, over cooked, fast and junks in this country, you will notice the rates of cancer and other diseases rising at the same rate.

The question remains: what to do about this situation. There is something we can do about it.