Seven Reasons Why Alkaline Water Is The Most Wonderful Thing Money Can Buy

I am not talking about high pH water I am talking about water with high alkalinity (the power of pH). There is an important difference. You can have high pH water at 11 with very little alkalinity, and you can have high pH water at only 8, with enough alkalinity to neutralize acids, toxins and plenty to raise oxygen delivery to the cells. The pH of water is not the indicator of it’s capacity for neutralizing acid. Alkalinity is the indicator of the water’s capacity to neutralize acid. 

This is one of the most important essays I am ever going to write and for the first time I am asking my readers to help it go viral. Share this with your friends and family. It is our chance to get something right, to strike back at the evil empire of lies and deceitful ones who feel no shame in hurting men, woman and children everywhere.  

In the recent health and medical hit piece in Forbes Magazine, by Dr. Nina Shapiro, we are told Seven Reasons Why Alkaline Water Is Basically A Waste Of Money. Like all hit pieces it is very superficial. Yet this one hits below the belt and needs to be confronted.

Dr. Shaprio would have been safer if she had talked about high pH water but she hangs herself saying, “Most alkaline waters lie in the pH range of 8 or 9, due to addition of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium– certainly in the safe range, to most everything but your wallet. And in some cases, your kidneys.”

Though the title reads seven reasons why, I could do 27 reasons or even 127 reasons, with on hand tied behind my back. The reason I can easily say that is that I have written two books on magnesium, essays on potassium and calcium, and a book on sodium bicarbonate, which Shaprio conveniently left out of the important minerals that make water alkaline. 

It is hard to believe that a reputable magazine like Forbes would print such a snow job that will easily contribute to many peoples deaths. Lets start with magnesium. The absolute best way of getting magnesium into one’s system, that extremely important mineral that helps people avoid heart attacks, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and even cancer, is in one’s water. But that would mean alkaline water isn’t a waste of money.

A Tufts study led by Adela Hruby, found that healthy people with the highest magnesium intake were 37% less likely to develop high blood sugar or excess circulating insulin, common precursors to diabetes. Among people who already had those conditions, those who consumed the most magnesium were 32% less likely to develop diabetes than those consuming the least.[1]

Only half of Americans get the recommended daily amount of magnesium in their diet, which is 400 to 420 milligrams for adult men and 310 to 320 milligrams for adult women. You can find it in whole grains, vegetables, fish, nuts and seeds and dark chocolate but when one already has a medical condition, it is impossible to ingest enough food to receive what would be considered a therapeutic dose. There is no established way of fortifying foods with magnesium without adversely affecting texture or flavor. Magnesium in water is 30% more bio-available than Mg in food. The food supply has been steadily becoming magnesium-poor since 1909.

But why drink alkaline water with magnesium in it? Paul Mason, famously known as the magnesium librarian, said, “Magnesium deficiency appears to have caused eight million sudden coronary deaths in America during the period 1940-1994. Well Forbes magazine and Dr. Shapiro must either want another eight million dead or think that the medical costs for diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancer and neurological diseases is cheaper.

Mason wrote, “For decades, the evidence has been overwhelming that Americans are very deficient in Mg, as evidenced by the 23% shortfall from the RDI, yet the FDA and DOJ have covered up their blunder, getting a Federal lawsuit dismissed before the evidence could be shown, and keeping silent about the millions of deaths indicated by over 50 epidemiological studies from nine countries. Recent studies clearly confirm that water-borne Mg is far, far better in preventing cardiovascular pathologies than food-borne Mg.”

The US National Academy of Science’s Food & Nutrition Board has established that the average American 14 or older is magnesium-deficient. The typical American diet does NOT provide the RDA of Mg for age 14 or older.[2]

Research shows us now that drinking high concentrations of magnesium in drinking water may protect against hip fractures. In 2010, there were 258,000 hospital admissions for hip fractures among people aged 65 and older. By 2030, the number of hip fractures is projected to reach 289,000, an increase of 12%. One out of five hip fracture patients dies within a year of their injury. That’s what will continue to happen for old people if Dr. Shapiro is listened to. For children:

Magnesium deficiency in children is characterized by excessive

Dr. Mildred Seelig.

We could go on all day about magnesium, one important aspect of alkaline water. But lets just end with the important point: Low serum and intracellular magnesium concentrations are associated with insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, and decreased insulin secretion. Magnesium improves insulin sensitivity thus lowering insulin resistance. Magnesium and insulin need each other. Without magnesium, our pancreas won’t secrete enough insulin–or the insulin it secretes won’t be efficient enough–to control our blood sugar.

Magnesium and bicarbonate rich mineral waters are easily absorbed and have many obvious health benefits that some people would like to make sure we do not enjoy. Magnesium functions as a bicarbonate co-transporter into cells. And bicarbonate acts as a transporter of magnesium into the mitochondria. Magnesium influx is linked with bicarbonate transport according to the Dietary Reference Intakes guide from the Institute of Medicine. Magnesium transport into or out of cells requires the presence of carrier-mediated transport systems (Gunther, 1003; Romani et al., 1993). ATPase reaction has a broad pH optimum centering on neutral pH, which is dependent on sufficiency of bicarbonates.   

[1] Hruby A, Meigs JB, O’Donnell CJ, Jacques PF, McKeown NM. Higher magnesium intake reduces risk of impaired glucose and insulin metabolism, and progression from prediabetes to diabetes in middle-aged Americans. Diabetes Care. 2013 Oct

[2] Prepublication copy, 1997, of the Dietary Reference Intakes for Magnesium, from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. Note: The final report on Dietary Reference Intakes (hardcover book) was released Sept. 1999, with identical numbers and only slight refinements of text.