As if crazy diet trends were not enough, we now have fad water. Alkaline water and its claimed benefits by manufacturers and ionising water systems are the new healthcare luxury. Water, we learnt in school, has a neutral pH of 7, meaning it is neither acidic nor alkaline—remember the litmus paper that came out unchanged? A pH of less than 7 is acidic and over 7 is alkaline.
So what is alkaline water?
Alkaline water is rich in minerals such as calcium, potassium and magnesium that are said to have alkalising properties. Natural spring water is one of the best sources. Sipping spring water is said to be healing, perhaps because of something Nobel Prize Winner Dr Otto Warburg said way back in 1931: “No disease, including cancer, can exist in an alkaline environment.”
This thought evolved into the concept of the ‘alkaline diet’, including alkaline water. The human body, with upto 60% water, is also slightly alkaline. However, traditional practitioners of medicine say this is changing. A recent study published in the Journal of Dental Hygiene , found that popular bottled drinking water was actually acidic in nature. Add to that junk food and all the stress in our lives, and our bodies are bound to be out of balance, says Dr Rishi Manivannan, a Chennai-based Ayurvedic practitioner.
“If we follow a traditional balanced diet, the acid-alkaline balance will be in place,” he says. A balanced diet in Ayurveda is really just two meals a day comprising the six tastes—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent and astringent—which contain all the essential nutrients. Today, our diets are high on foods that are too sweet (grains, milk), too salty (pickles, packaged foods) and too pungent (chillies, spices).
Will alkaline water solve the problem?
Studies are conflicting. A study conducted by The Voice Institute of New York revealed that alkaline water is beneficial for patients with acid reflux disease. Another, conducted by O’Brien Institute for Public Health, Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, said there is “a lack of evidence for or against diet acid load and/or alkaline water for the initiation or treatment of cancer.”
Dr Kannan Pugazhendi, sports medicine specialist and founder, Sparrc Institute, points out that the stomach is acidic because it needs to kill bacteria and aid digestion. “It is the blood around it that needs to maintain its slightly alkaline nature to function effectively. But we need to ensure we don’t push it to the other extreme and make it too alkaline.”
If you don’t have spring water in your backyard, a home remedy is to soak half a cucumber with a slice of lemon in a litre of water overnight, and sip on this through the day, between meals. “This is not a medically approved recipe. No research has been conducted on the alkaline properties of cucumber, but it’s understood to be beneficial by those who have used it,” says Dr Manivannan.
What’s come up instead?
Here’s what you’re likely to hear from the manufacturers of these products: “Diseases thrive in the body because of low oxygen levels. The right kind of alkaline water is one of the most effective ways to boost oxygen levels in the system,” says Kalisetti Naidu, founder, Blue Water Alkaline Solutions.
There are companies that offer water systems that produce H2O as close to spring water as possible, or so they claim. How do they do this? By adding free hydroxyl ions (OH) rather then free hydrogen (H+) — the latter makes water acidic. A step further are brands that offer ionised water. These water systems are said to have extra electrons, reducing the ability of free radicals to oxidise cells. Simply put, imagine a cut apple exposed to the air. Say it gets brown in an hour. Now you smear lime juice on it. This slows the browning process down. That’s what ionised water does: it slows damage to our body, keeping us healthier longer—at least that is one of the premises.
So if it’s this simple, why aren’t people world over using it? Because there is such a thing as being too alkaline, that too without the mineral content. Worse, it can deplete the existing mineral content in the body.
Dr Kannan explains how the body has a buffering mechanism to maintain its pH at the required level, “There are chances of this buffering mechanism being overloaded,” he says. The bottom line then: “Eat right, stick to a traditional diet, and the alkaline levels in our blood will remain as good as they should be,” says Dr Dharini Krishnan, consultant dietician at Laksha Hospitals, Chennai.
A pH of less than 7 is acidic and over 7 is alkaline.
