This morning a friend asked my opinion regarding alkaline water. No, she was not interested to buy it. She just wanted to hear why it is not plausible so that she may answer the people who (I imagine) was trying to sell her alkaline water.
She is not the first person to ask and probably not the last. So I will take sometime and explain it here, and perhaps when the next enquiry comes, I can update this post and add more links to it to make it more robust.
For those who want a Malay version, please click here (versi bahasa Melayu).
The Science
From a very basic physiological point of view, the stomach has a very acidic content due to the secretion of hydrochloric acid. What is physiology, I hear you ask? That is the basic science of how human bodies perform. Yes, I have four years experience teaching and lecturing physiology to undergraduate medical students in both private and public university setting.
What Happens When We Eat Foods Which have an Acidic Content
It is not a good idea to eat very acidic food first thing in morning as some people have done while dieting, and later developed medical problems such as peptic ulcer or gastritis (the lay man term would be 'gastric' in Malaysia). Eating a lot of acidic food alone or eating sweets and then not cleaning teeth for a long time would allow bacteria to multiply in the mouth and produce acid while they breakdown or eat the food in the mouth, this would then cause teeth to go bad and give rise to other problems. So it is good to clean the mouth after eating such food and the reason why our toothpaste are slightly alkaline is because it helps to wash out food and also maintain the non-acidic surrounding that benefits teeth. Normal saliva too is slightly alkaline for this reason.
What Happens When A Person Consumes Water or Food Which is Alkaline
However, if one drinks alkaline water, it will go straight to the stomach which has an acidity pH of 2 due to hydrochloric acid which is secreted by the stomach wall in order to breakdown protein. This is completely normal, the high acidity. Neutral pH is 7. The normal stomach though, has a very powerful lining of somewhat soapy material that prevents the acid secreted from digesting the stomach wall itself. This layer of protection though may fail some times and it those instances cause illness like ulcers (like a wound in the stomach wall) and gastritis (inflammation of the stomach wall). We are not here to discuss disease though, so we will concentrate on what happens to the alkaline water. It will be neutralised in the stomach, end of story.
It's A Balancing Act
The human body has several different mechanisms to control or maintain the pH. To function normally, our blood pH can only be in the range between 7.35-7.45. Any higher or lower will cause problems and illnesses, to put it a very simplified way. The main organs that help regulate the pH is the kidney and lungs.
More Basic Science
To understand in further detail regarding the science behind this, we must explain what hydrogen ions are and also bicarbonate ions. Hydrogen ions cause a solution to be acidic, and excess of bicarbonate ions make a solution alkaline. Then there are buffers, solutions that can neutralise to a certain extent excess of hydrogen ions or bicarbonate ions, so that the pH does not change when it otherwise would in the absence of the buffers. The body uses buffers so that while the mechanisms that need to be kicked in to get rid of the excess H+ or OH- ions, the body can continue to work as normal.
So I really don't understand how consuming alkaline water can bring about any direct health benefits compared to consuming water which is of neutral pH.
If you are aware of any scientific studies which prove otherwise, do let me know.
Another Point: Zam-zam Water is Alkaline
Zam-zam water, we muslims believe, is a special water that first surfaced in the middle of the desert when the Prophet Ismail a.s. kicked the ground while crying as an infant, after being left behind with his mother near the Kaabah by the Prophet Ibrahim a.s. This water can only be found in what is now Masjidil Haram. Many muslims will bring back this blessed water when they visit Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage or for Umrah. This water is freely available in the Mosque and is said to cure many diseases. This water is also alkaline.
However, taking tap water, or any other water from any other source, then turning it alkaline by adding the necessary chemicals, does not make it equivalent or equal to Zam-zam water.
Zam-zam water is alkaline but alkaline water is NOT Zam-zam water.
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