Do Alkaline Water Ionizers work?

Question

Do Alkaline Water Ionizers work?

Answer 1

Uh the guy before me doesn't understand how they work, and most of his chemistry is wrong, so I'd ignore what he said.

Anyhow, someone I knew got one since a relative came down cancer and they were recommended the device.  I'm not sure how effective it was (since they did 3 other alternative treatment methods as well to get the recovery), but to some extent that made me a fan.

I essentially support them for 2 reasons:

A) the japanese are big fans of the devices and widely use them for health promotion (whereas many cultures easily get conned into believing certain things are good, the japanese tend to be much more critical, and hence if they have given something widespread adoption it probably works)

B) The theory behind why they have a purpose makes sense to me.  If you have an acid and you add a base in, they cancel each other and create water as a byproduct of their reactions.  Thus if someone's body is overly acidic, adding basic water to them will shift their ph away from acidity, and by using water, it introduces a method of doing so free of side effects (unlike say eating a strong base).

The Ph theory basically says the items predominant in our modern diet (grains, meats, sugars) promote an acidic ph, while those that used to be in our prehistoric diet (but have since shifted to the processed food diet) such as fresh vegatables promote an alkaline ph.  As such, most people in the modern world have excessively acid systems.

Coinciding with this, an interesting observation was made; most pathogens and cancers survive much better in acidic environments, to the point there is a consistent correlation between ph and if a person is sick or not.

Hence, drinking alkalinized water probably helps your health, but ideally one should be eating a pre industrial food diet.

However, complete proof to answer your question is not accessible and would require millions in research.  Hence, I strongly suspect they "work" but I have no way to prove it.

Answer 2

Pure water is neither an acid or a base. You cannot change the pH of pure water period, no matter how much ozone you pump through it. The only way to make water basic is to add a solute that is basic so now you no longer have plain water. So the answer is save your money.