Why Alkaline Water?

Why should anyone want to use alkaline water?

I had never heard of alkaline water and as a doctor fairly well schooled in most health matters, that surprised me.  I was in a conversation with a professional colleague about how there were just some conditions that regular modern medicine seemed powerless to help.   He had done missionary work and had contracted a tropical disease that had ravaged his system and was frustrated that most medications prescribed for him had not been helpful, and some had caused considerable harm.  In closing, almost as a "throwaway line", he said, "...but nothing has helped me as much as alkaline water."

What the heck is alkaline water, I asked.  I had never heard of it.  He explained to me that alkalline water not only had a higher pH, but also had powerful anti-inflammatory qualities and an unusual characteristic called "microclustering" which allowed water to be more rapidly absorbed by the body.  Widely used in Europe, alkaline water is even more widely accepted in Japan where it is considered an acceptable medical treatment and is used in hospitals and other medical settings.

From a medical standpoint alkaline water is attractive because most serious medical conditions--cancer, infections, inflammation--survive and thrive in acid environments; thus the idea that making conditions more alkaline suggests that there would be a curative or at least helpful effect on these illnesses.  In fact, an early cancer researcher, Dr. Otto Warburg (winner of a 1931 Nobel Prize) stated that "No illness, including cancer, can exist in an alkaline environment".  His work, referred to as the Warburg Hypothesis  is still an important concept in the study of cancer some 80 years later.

If you attend a gathering of alkaline water users, you find a very mixed group of cancer survivors, cancer patients, asthmatics, athletes, arthritis sufferers, and a whole collection of people with inflammatory and auto-immune disorders such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain and diabetic complications. All of them will testify to the value of alkaline water as an important part of their treatment and feeling of increased well-being.

In future posts we will provide information on these and other aspects of alkaline water use.