Alkaline Diet Q&A 11: Should You Drink Alkaline Water When the Stomach is Acid?
I get this question a lot via email and the comments, so I thought it would be a good idea to just copy and paste in my answer that I literally just answered 30 seconds ago! This is my raw answer, unedited. This is how I’d say it if you were sat across from me right now!
QUESTION:
“Hi Ross, I was very much sold and invested in your ideas (about alkaline water) from the first exposure I had to your website and views.
Subsequently beside your YouTube videos are completely conflicting messages, talking about the importance of acid for example in the gut for digestion. It makes it hard to know what to follow.”
ANSWER:
To be totally honest, you can find conflicting and negative views on practically anything on the internet. You have to be selective who you listen to.
You can even find arguments against the most widely accepted natural therapies online – even acupuncture, which is so accepted you can receive it in hospitals in the UK, USA and Australia (among others).
How a site could say acupuncture is nonsense is beyond me. But then ‘QuackWatch’ is the most ridiculous, pompous, self-important, egotistical site full of nonsense I’ve ever seen in my 12 years of blogging.
This leads to the obvious question of ‘so who do I listen to’?
The reason I’d say have faith in me when I’m talking about the Alkaline Water/Chanson Ionizers is is:
a) I present about a dozen ways of making alkaline water, and 90% of them are free, or not something I retail – I just know that one-size fits ONE – and not everyone will want only the thing I retail
b) If you DO buy my product, I give you a complete 100% 60-day trial – if you decide you don’t want it, this leaves me about $150 out of pocket. That’s how convinced I am in the benefit it gives.
b) I have been selling Chanson ionizers for 4 years, and the feedback I get is incredible. It makes a HUGE difference to people’s lives.
c) I have been writing and coaching the alkaline lifestyle to people since 2004, and I am in this for the long term. If I didn’t belive in something I wouldn’t promote it – making a difference is about a thousand times more important to me than making a profit. If it didn’t work, I’d run a mile.
Stomach Acid & Alkalnity
On the specific point you mentioned, the notion of putting alkalinity into the stomach being a bad thing because the stomach has to be acid is so frighteningly inaccurate it’s not funny.
If this were the case it would be unhealthy to eat spinach, kale, broccoli, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, watercress, oily fish, nuts, seeds, tomatoes, avocados etc.
All of these healthy fruits are alkaline-forming.
The stomach creates hydrochloric acid on demand. It creates a lot of it when a food is acid-forming, because these foods are difficult to digest and break down (think red meats, sugary foods, wheats, dairy etc). When the stomach creates acid, it then needs to be neutralised.
The body does have a small alkaline buffering system to help do this, but our very acidic diet (which if the theory you mentioned was true then an acidic diet would be good for us right?) – means that if we’re consuming a lot of these foods the body has to create even more hydrochloric acid (HCl) to break it down – more than we can buffer.
This then actually leads to a huge level of stress for the body, as it tries to create sodium bicarbonate, and pulls alkaline minerals from the bones and organs to try to neutralize all of this excess acid.
The immediate result? The digestive system gets clogged and there is too much acid, and so it travels back up the esophegus and you get reflux, IBS and all sorts of other bad digestive conditions.
A further case in point. Here is a research paper showing that alkaline water helps to soothe and prevent reflux (i.e. too much acid in the stomach):
It summarises with:
“Unlike conventional drinking water, pH 8.8 alkaline water instantly denatures pepsin, rendering it permanently inactive. In addition, it has good acid-buffering capacity. Thus, the consumption of alkaline water may have therapeutic benefits for patients with reflux disease.”
If any of these critical articles have scientific references and studies to show alkaline water has a negative effect on the body I am certainly open to having my mind changed, but I have to say 99.99% of the time, these negative articles are just people saying opinions (largely while selling their own type of filter) and are based on their hunches rather than facts.
I hope this amount of detail is not overwhelming 🙂
I just wanted to let you know that I don’t just say things about products to sell them – I put out a message I believe in, have researched thoroughly and have got feedback from consumers of the product to let me know how it has helped change their life!
If you have any questions – I’m more than happy to help!
Ross
I think its worth noting that there is much more to repairing the gut and treating medical conditions than only changing the pH of the water you drink.
We do need to have an hydrochloric acid in the stomach to break down foods – the problem is that 40 to 60% of the population do not have fully functioning enzymes. These under performing enzymes are due to heredity conditions and how some of us cannot metabolise folic acid (a synthetic compound) and really need to be taking folinic acid.
To really regain your energy by first repairing your gut and finding out if your body is part of that percentage of the population that are having issues with they methylation pathway processes in the body (which is the way our bodies naturally detoxify heavy metals, and toxins ) – including the beneficial use of alkalinising the water you drink… find a functional doctor in your area – and discover how important it is to understand how your body’s methylation process is working and whether you have the MTHFR gene mutation which you can test via 23andme.com.
I highly recommend becoming aware of Dr Benjamin Lynch’s work – MTHFR.net http://mthfr.net/read-this-first/2012/01/25/
The information that Ross is providing is very beneficial – and certainly needs much more awareness – however – there is much more to the picture to gaining our health and energy levels back than only changing the water – you need to look at eating gluten free, taking the active form of folate and the correct B12s. Having your homocysteine levels checked.
… I’m on this journey too :)))
Hi,
I’m confused as the link you’ve put in is an in vitro study of the effects of alkaline water on pepsin, which refers to possible use for people with reflux disease. As I’m sure you’re aware, pepsin is released in an inactive form, pepsinogen, which requires hydrochloric acid to cleave it to its active form, pepsin. As pH is a logarithmic scale, and the stomach’s pH 2, this means that the stomach is 100, 000 more acidic than water (there are 10 to the power 7 time more hydrogen ions than water). My understanding is that this level of acidity is needed to kill bacteria and enable protein digestion to start.
Water which has been changed to pH 8.8 has 63 x more hydroxyl ions (OH-) than water. I am unclear how or why adding this relatively weak alkaline will help anything, so would be very grateful if you can explain.
It’s great to encourage people to eat a nutritious diet with fruit and vegetables. And I have seen nothing that indicates that it is possible to stop the acidity in the stomach (which is fortunate as it’s needed). It would be a real shame if the acidity could be neutralised as this would make people miss out on vital nutrients – the protein (which includes all enzymes as every enzyme is a protein).