The Difference Between Alkaline Water and Ionized Water

Alkaline Water v.s Ionized Water

The Chemistry of Ionized Water and Alkaline Water

To understand the difference between plain alkaline water and ionized alkaline water, you need to know a few terms used in chemistry. Most importantly, you need to understand that alkalinity and pH are not the same thing.

Alkalinity measures the ability of water to neutralize acids. Alkaline water can have high alkalinity while having only a moderately alkaline pH because alkalinity and pH are not the same thing. If your health challenges come from body acidity, you want water with high alkalinity to neutralize as much acidity as possible.
alkaline-water-vs-ionized-water-infographic
The difference is that alkaline water made by a water ionizer has antioxidant potential. Bottled alkaline water doesn’t

The Potential Hydrogen (pH) of water refers to its potential to attract positively-charged Hydrogen ions (H+). Your levels are maintained in a narrow range by your body. Because of this, pH isn’t as important as alkalinity when it comes to your health. What you’re drinking alkaline water for is it’s acid-neutralizing alkalinity and it’s antioxidant potential.

Ionization occurs when an atom or molecule either gains or loses electrons, when that happens, the atom becomes an ion – a charged particle.  When an atom becomes an ion, its  electrical charge can be either positive or negative. It depends on whether the atom gained or lost electrons. The minerals in ionized alkaline water – mostly calcium, magnesium, and potassium – gain electrons from the ionization process. The extra electrons give the water a negative electrical charge. That charge gives it antioxidant potential.

The difference between alkaline ionized water and ionized water is:  Ionized water can be either alkaline or acidic.  Alkaline ionized water has alkaline minerals in it, and acidic ionized water from a water ionizer has carbonate in it, which makes it a dilute solution of carbonic acid.

Oxidation Reduction Potential – The benefit of alkaline water from a water ionizer.

A water ionizer puts a negative electrical charge into the water it makes. That negative electrical charge gives the water antioxidant potential which can be measured, just like the charge of a battery. The negative charge is called its Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP).

In-vitro (in the lab) studies have shown that water with a high negative ORP, when mixed with vitamin C, enhances the antioxidant effect of vitamin C. You can do this by mixing alkaline water with the juice of any citrus fruit

The only  problem with the antioxidant potential of alkaline water is that you can’t store it for very long. The antioxidant ORP of alkaline water begins to decline after about 24 hours. So it’s best drank fresh from the ionizer.

Why Bottled Alkaline Water has no Antioxidant Potential, but can have toxic antimony in it.

Bottled alkaline water has no antioxidant potential because the antioxidant potential doesn’t keep. . Because of this, the best alkaline water comes fresh from a water ionizer. Another problem with bottled alkaline water is chemical contamination. BPA, phthalates,  and antimony have all been detected in bottled water. BPA and phthalates are potent hormone disruptors and potential carcinogens. Antimony is a heavy metal and a known carcinogen. Alkaline water actually draws antimony out of plastic, so the antimony contamination will be worse with bottled alkaline water than it is for plain bottled water.

Triple the Antioxidant Potential of Vitamin C with Ionized Alkaline Water.

A study called Electrolyzed-reduced water protects against oxidative damage to DNA, RNA, and protein tested the effect of mixing ionized alkaline water with Vitamin C. The result was that ionized alkaline water tripled the antioxidant strength of Vitamin C. It’s easy to get this added antioxidant benefit with a water ionizer. Simply mix the juice of a lemon, lime, orange or any citrus fruit with alkaline water from a water ionizer and drink immediately.



Reference

Coassin, Mariagraza, Fulvio Ursini, and Alberto Bindoli. “Antioxidant effect of manganese.” Science Direct. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics.” Science Direct. Science Direct. . .

Research on the antioxidant effect of alkaline water combined with vitamin C:
Lee, MY, and YK Kim, et al. “Electrolyzed-reduced water protects against oxidative damage to DNA, RNA, and protein..” Springer Link. Humana Press, 1 Nov 2006. Web. 8 Jul 2013. .





Is Ionized Alkaline Water and Alkaline Water the same thing?


No. Ionized alkaline water has antioxidant potential, regular alkaline water does not. You may already have alkaline water flowing straight from your tap. Any water with a pH of greater than 7 has an alkaline pH. But that water won’t have the health benefits of ionized alkaline water because it lacks antioxidant potential, and it isn’t alkaline enough to counteract acidity in the body.
The Chemical Difference between Ionized and Alkaline water.

Alkalinity: Plain alkaline water, similar to bottled alkaline water and the water that comes out of your tap, gets its alkalinity from calcium bicarbonate and magnesium bicarbonate. These are the mineral salts that make your water hard, they are responsible for the white scale that clogs plumbing and appliances. They are also mildly alkaline. What separates a mild alkali from a strong alkali is the amount of acidity that they can counteract. Mild alkalis can only counteract a small amount of acidity. Strong alkalis can counteract more.

Ionized alkaline water gets it’s alkalinity from calcium hydroxide and magnesium hydroxide. These hydroxide alkalis are much stronger than the carbonate alkalis they replace. They are the reason ionized alkaline water can counteract acidity in your body, and raise your urine pH. The calcium and magnesium hydroxide in ionized alkaline water get there because of the ionization process used by a water ionizer. The machine splits that magnesium and calcium away from the carbonate in your tap water. After that, a separate reaction takes place where the calcium and magnesium grab hydroxyl ions from water molecules. This separate reaction makes the calcium and magnesium into calcium and magnesium hydroxides.

How Ionized Alkaline Water’s Alkalinity can benefit your Health.

In a normally healthy body, excess acidity is neutralized by buffering systems in the body. But as you age, the body’s ability to safely neutralize that acidity declines. When that happens, the body has to fall back on the alkaline minerals that it used to build your bones. It dissolves those minerals, and buffers the acidity – but that leads to weak and brittle bones.

Another problem is that as your body’s acid-buffering ability declines, your kidneys can become overwhelmed by acidity – they simply can’t get rid of it all. When that happens, your body may end up in a state of low grade chronic acidity called metabolic acidosis. If left unchecked, chronic low grade metabolic acidosis  may lead to a much more serious condition called metabolic syndrome. The symptoms of which are:

High blood pressure

Morbid obesity

High blood sugar

Kidney stones

High blood cholesterol

These symptoms occur because your vital organs are slowly shutting down as acidity destroys them. In essence, you are being eaten alive, from the inside, by acid.

Alkalinity to the rescue! When you drink a glass of ionized alkaline water, it raises your urine pH in about 20 minutes to a half hour. You can even test this for yourself with pH test strips. This shows that the ionized alkaline water has taken some of the acid load off your kidneys. It shoulders part of the burden of acidity in your body, which protects your bones from having to give up their precious stores of calcium and magnesium. You can ask any doctor, it’s much easier to keep the healthy bone you’ve got, than it is to rebuild weak and brittle bones.

Relief from GERD, Mild Digestive Upset.

Clinical testing done in Japan showed that 88% of people with mild digestive upset found full or partial relief just from drinking ionized alkaline water alone. Other research has shown that ionized alkaline water permanently neutralizes pepsin – the stomach enzyme that triggers the painful burning and damage of GERD. Both chronic digestive upset and GERD are symptoms of metabolic acidosis. They are a call for help from a body drowning in acidity, and the help the body is crying out for is alkalinity!

Why ionized alkaline water has antioxidant potential and plain alkaline water doesn’t.

Ionized alkaline water get’s its antioxidant potential from the electron-charge that the ionization process pushes into the water when ionizing it. The electron-charge of the water can be measured with a device known as an ORP meter, it measures the electron charge in millivolts. The higher the negative charge, the more antioxidant potential there is in the water. For example, an  Ionizer  can an electron-charge of up to -900 millivolts into a glass of ionized alkaline water, that’s nearly a full volt of power! That amount of power gives the ionized alkaline water made by the immense antioxidant potential.

Why an Electron Charge gives Ionized Alkaline Water Antioxidant potential


Oxidation: To understand why an electron charge can act as an antioxidant in the body, you first have to understand how oxidants cause harm in the body and accelerate aging. In the body, there are two main types of oxidants – Free Radicals and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). These oxidants damage and destroy tissues and DNA in your body by stripping them of electrons, so the oxidant can reach a neutral charge state. Oxidants lack electrons, and that makes them chemically unstable. It is a fact of physics that if a substance lacks electrons, it will try to grab them from anything else around it. When an oxidant succeeds in grabbing electrons from tissues or DNA, they become oxidized, which destroys them, just like when iron is oxidized, it turns into rust. So oxidants in your body basically act to rust out your insides. That rusting then contributes to premature aging, and it’s a factor in the development of degenerative diseases.

Antioxidants, such as ionized alkaline water, have excess electrons, thanks to their negative electron charge. Because of that electron charge, they are just as eager to give up their electrons as oxidants are to take them. So an antioxidant protects your tissues and DNA from oxidation by giving up their electrons, thereby neutralizing both the oxidant and the antioxidant. As a result, your tissues and DNA are spared oxidative damage.

Why a Life water ionizer is the best source of ionized alkaline water

To get the most benefit from ionized alkaline water, you want both strong acid-fighting alkalinity and high antioxidant potential. You also want that water to be clean, free of harmful chemicals that come from plastic bottles like BPA and antimony. There’s only one source of ionized alkaline water that meets all three of those healthy requirements: A water ionizer.

Purity: An  Ionizer comes with custom configured filtration. We customize it based on what we can find out about your local water quality by reviewing your local water quality report, and by keeping an eye on news reports about water pollution. Those two sources together give us the most complete picture possible of what unhealthy toxins may be in your water. 

Alkalinity: To change the weak mineral bicarbonates in your tap water into acid-fighting mineral hydroxides, you need a lot of power. A water ionizer has to overcome the charge that holds calcium and magnesium together with the bicarbonate in tap water if it is to separate them. This is why top of the line Ionizers come with a lot of power. This offers optional GRID plates that increase the amount of power available to separate the minerals from the bicarbonates by using a principle called edge-conductivity: It’s easier for electricity to travel on an edge rather than a flat surface. GRID plates are tough, designed to last a lifetime and maximize the potential of your Ionizer.

Antioxidant potential: High power and advanced plate designs like GRID plates work together to maximize the transfer of electrons into the water. This results in the highest possible electron charge that the water could carry. Bottom line, you get more age fighting antioxidant power in every glass you drink!

Take back your health with plain water (pH7.5) acid fighting alkalinity and age-fighting antioxidant power. 

References

Ostojic, Sergej, and Marko Stonanovic. “Hydrogen-Rich Water Affected Blood Alkalinity in Physically Active Men.” . Research in Sports Medicine: An International Journal, 06 Jan 2014. Web. 20 Feb 2014. .

Wynn, E, MA Krieg, JM Aeschlimann, and P Burckhardt. “Alkaline mineral water lowers
bone resorption even in calcium sufficiency: alkaline mineral water and bone metabolism.” Bone. Elsevier, 27 Oct 2008. Web. 1 Jul 2013. .

Burckhardt, Peter. “The Effect of the Alkali Load of Mineral Water on Bone Metabolism.”
The Journal of Nutrition. American Society for Nutrition, n.d. Web. 26 Mar 2014. .

Lee, MY, YK Kim, and et al. “Electrolyzed-reduced water protects against oxidative
damage to DNA, RNA, and protein.” Springer Link. Humana Press, 01 Nov 2006. Web. 2 Jul 2013. .

Hiraoka, A, M Takemoto, and et al. “Studies on the Properties and Real Existence of
Aqueous Solution Systems that are Assumed to Have Antioxidant Activities by the Action of “Active Hydrogen.”Journal of Health Science. Journal of Health Science, 09 Jun 2004. Web. 2 Jul 2013. .

Abraham, Guy, and Jorge Flebas. “The effect of daily consumption of 2 liters of
electrolyzed water for 2 months on body composition and several physiological parameters in four obese subjects: a preliminary report.” Highbeam Research. Original Internist, 01 Sep 2011. Web. 2 Jul 2013. .

Heil, D. “Acid-base balance and hydration status following consumption of mineral-based alkaline bottled water..” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 13 Sep 2010. Web. 26 Mar 2014. .

Hanaoka, Kokichi, Sun Dongxu, and et al. “The mechanism of the enhanced antioxidant effects against superoxide anion radicals of reduced water produced by electrolysis.” Science Direct. Science Direct, 01 Jan 2004. Web. 5 Jul 2013. .

Koufamn, J.A, and N. Johnston. “Potential Benefits of PH 8.8 Alkaline Drinking Water as an Adjunct in the Treatment of Reflux Disease.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 July 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2015. .

Frassetto, L. and Sebastian, A. Age and systemic acid-base equilibrium: analysis of published
data, Journal of Gerontology, Advanced Biological Science and Medical Science, 51: B91-99, 1996. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8548506

Chapter 8 MIRACLE HERBS

Chapter 8   MIRACLE HERBS

Right now, herbs are "hot." Major companies are going herbal. The AMA (American Medical Association) is acknowledging the value of some herbs. Herbs are being featured in the cover stories of major magazines such as Time and Newsweek. Sales of herbs are well into the billions of dollars a year. This is a time for
herbalists and alternative healers to celebrate. Right?

  Not necessarily.

  While many in the alternative health community have fought for recognition from the medical establishment, personally, I have been very wary of it. And now that recognition has come, I believe we are about to pay the price.

What specifically is the problem? The answer lies in one word: "co-option" (definition: to take over an independent minority movement through assimilation into an established group or culture).

   Standardization

  Almost everyone now believes that standardized extracts are a good thing. They answer the medical community's need for predictable doses and effects. All of the top herbal manufacturers
now promote their use of standardized herbs. To a large degree, though, I believe, it's a red herring. I'm not a big fan of standardization. Let me explain.

  To understand what standardization means, let's take a look at orange juice. The orange juice you buy in the store, either in half gallon containers or frozen concentrate, is actually a great example
of a standardized herbal product (oranges fitting in the broad definition of herbs).[1] The manufacturers of these juice products have been able to identify the "active ingredients" of orange
juice that are primarily responsible for taste. In the case of orange juice, those key ingredients are sugar (sweetness) and acid (tartness). Now the way standardization works with orange juice is
that if a manufacturer finds that a batch of oranges is not sweet enough, they'll blend that batch with a much sweeter batch to bring it up to the "ideal" sweetness. If that same batch is too acidic,they'll blend it with a batch that's less acidic, until their testing shows it's reached just the right level of acidity. That's why each can or container of orange juice you buy tastes pretty much like the
one you bought the week before. That's standardization. So what's my problem?

    Have you ever tasted a can of frozen orange juice or juice from a container that even comes close to the taste of good fresh squeezed?[2] That's the problem. While standardization can make
one batch virtually identical to the next, it can never make any batch as good as really good non-standardized fresh squeezed. Why?

   The reason is simple. The taste of orange juice is governed by far more factors than sugar and acid. It is the result of the interplay of dozens and dozens of natural flavors, esters, and oils which are beyond the ability of any manufacturer to control. It is a symphony of taste—a symphony that we cannot duplicate by tweaking one or two "active" ingredients. (And, in fact, tweaking is actually often deleterious in the sense that it destroys the "natural" balance of all those flavors and esters that are not standardized.

   Maybe a better example is wine. Has anyone ever been able to guarantee in a laboratory the taste of the best wines? Of course not. The taste of the wine is the result of the soil the grapes are grown in and the temperature and rains that occur in a given year. Now here comes an important point. While it's true that the quality of wine at any vineyard may vary from year to year, is it not also true that the best vineyards consistently produce the best wines? Some years, a great vineyard may produce superb wine. The next year, the wine may only be outstanding or really good. But isn't it true that a great vineyard will almost always produce a better tasting wine than Ripple—a standardized wine, if you will?

   And that's the problem with standardization. It lowers the bar of what we can expect from herbal formulations. Standardized formulas will never match the quality (and healing power) of a
non-standardized formula made from the highest quality herbs because the standardized formula seeks to control one, two, or three "identified" active ingredients at the expense of all the other"active" ingredients that we don't yet know about. Standardization "distorts" plant synergy, and it disrupts the natural ratios of active ingredients inherent in the plant itself and replaces them with "arbitrary" ratios as determined by today's researchers.

   And then, of course, in addition to everything else, our attempt to identify active ingredients is fundamentally flawed. The procedure used is right out of standard drug testing:isolate individual chemical components and test their effects one at a time. If a particular biochemical from an herb tests as "non-active," we can eliminate it from standardization of that herb. But what if that component has a different value in the grand scheme of things? What if, although it may do nothing by itself, its presence makes another component twice as effective? What if....

[1 An herb being defined as "any of various often aromatic plants used especially in medicine or as seasoning."]


[2 Keeping in mind that there are people who actually prefer the taste of Sunny Delight] 

An obvious question has to be occurring to you right now: "If what I'm saying is true, then why is 'everybody' standardizing their herbs?" And the answer is that standardization is the herbalist's
answer to traditional medicine's complaint that herbs are unpredictable. Another way of saying this, which may be more illuminating, is that standardized extracts make herbs more like
drugs. But as we've just seen, herbs are not like drugs. Herbs are not single chemicals. They are a synergistic blend of natural compounds. Once you acknowledge this, the whole idea of standardization is revealed for what it is: co-option.

    So what's the alternative? Well, one thing that we do know about herbs, through centuries of use, is that high-quality herbs have great healing powers. We also know that well-grown herbs are consistently high in all active ingredients—those that we can identify, and those that we won't know about for another hundred years. The bottom line, then, is that if you must guarantee something, then why not:

> Use high-quality herbs with their natural ratios of ingredients. This means, of course, that you can't "doctor up" poor quality herbs as you can with standardization.

> Guarantee a minimum level for all active ingredients (as we know them today).

  This alternative provides all of the advantages of standardization, and none of the negatives.

     An Interesting Development

   Several companies are taking standardization to the next level by running herbs through the same lab tests that prescription medicines must pass—called bioassays—to uncover just what biologically active ingredients they contain. Using certain test-tube experiments, for example, they can test whether chemicals interact with the brain pathways involved in depression. If the experiments
measure a response, that chemical is biologically active. Already, these companies claim that their new testing process has discovered that there are some five active ingredients that may help St. John's Wort ease depression—not the single ingredient, hypericin, which is currently the target of standardization.

   These companies are also looking to contract with supplement manufacturers to "guarantee" their herbal products. American Home Products, for example, has already begun marketing a series
of specially tested herbs under its popular Centrum supplement brand.

   And finally, these companies also plan to seek FDA approval to sell the most effective herbs as prescription drugs. This will allow doctors to sell, for a higher price of course, a "fully tested medicine version" of the same herbs you currently buy in the health store.
There are four fundamental problems I see with this whole process:

1. First, as we've already alluded to, no testing process in the world can test for the synergistic factor of all the biochemical components in herbs. No testing process can determine if a compound, even though it may not be biologically active itself, serves to increase the biological activity of another compound. That's why no testing process can match the skill of the professional herbalist (just as it cannot come close to matching the palate of the professional wine
taster) in determining the effectiveness of an herb.

2. It reinforces the paradigm of herbs as drugs (that is for symptom X, take herb Y) and puts herbal medicine in the hands of doctors (who, as a rule, have no understanding of herbal medicine) and takes it out of the hands of the herbal professionals.

3. It actually leads to the classification of herbs as drugs, as both companies are already looking to do.

4. It totally ignores the other aspects of herbal quality.

   Interestingly enough, this is not a new idea. We've gone down this road before—with disastrous consequences. The modern drug industry, as we know it today, was created out of herbal medicine. (The word "drug" itself actually comes from the old German word "droge," which was used to describe the process of "drying" herbs in preparation for use.) The apparent motive behind the development of pharmaceuticals was to create purer, more potent, and more effective "medicines." Unfortunately, as we now know, the net result was, in many cases, just the opposite—less
effective medicines with a whole range of deadly side effects. Pharmaceuticals, however, do offer one major advantage over herbs. They are patentable, and as such, generate billions and billions of dollars in profits for the companies that manufacture them—and the medical system that distributes them.

    Herb Quality

   Ninety-nine percent of the herbs used by American companies do not come from the US. They are imported from Eastern Europe and from many third-world countries such as India, China, and Mexico.

   Unfortunately, these countries use large amounts of insecticides and pesticides in the growing of their herbs. DDT is still commonly used in Asia and Mexico, whereas organo-phosphate nervegas
based insecticides are commonly used throughout Eastern Europe.

   It's also worth noting that most of the areas in which these herbs are grown in these countries are heavily polluted. The herbs are inundated by polluted rain and irrigated by polluted rivers. In
Eastern Europe, for example, there have been no environmental laws for decades. Rivers have been used as open sewers. Everything from chemical toxic waste to radioactive waste—no
joke—has been dumped into these rivers.

  The reason most American companies use these herb sources, regardless of the problems just mentioned, is that they are cheap. Good quality organic and wildcrafted herbs cost as much as 20
times more. Before you use any company's herbal formulations, you should learn where their herbs come from.

      Herbal Preparation

    There are a number of ways herbs can be prepared. In increasing order of potency, they are: