Ready for some serious future inspiration?

Ian: I found myself crying as I watching this amazing advertising video. How did it affect you?

A leap of faith is what is required at this moment in history

But for some, it's a daily occurrence.

Fungus and Live blood interpretations

Here's another question I received yesterday from Diana.

Dr Robert O. Young’s main thrust seems to be that fungus in the blood can mutate in acidic conditions and become virus or bacteria. He therefore suggests that we consume absolutely nothing that is in any way ‘fungal’ – even vinegar. What are your thoughts about this?

A good question. I admit to have been quite enamoured with Dr Young’s theories for some years. The theory, of course, is not new, and I discuss it at length in my Alkaline Defence Program (downloadable free here) It’s a tempting idea because it is really saying that if you keep the blood at the right pH then you will never have the conditions for this transformation to occur. I still like it, and I know Dr Young says he has 60,000 live blood tests to prove his theories, but to tell you the truth, the jury is out for me. 

The reason for this is simple. Although he claims proof via the blood tests, there is considerable controversy of the relevance of live blood testing results. Please note; I didn’t say live blood testing was wrong, or faulty; I’m just saying that the interpretation of the test results is the key. Just because Dr Young says a certain result means something does not give it scientific proof, which only comes from properly conducted trials.. and that’s the problem; I’ve never found any. So I am left with my acceptance of a theory that makes sense to me, but doesn’t appear to have any scientific track record.

So.. look at it, see the results, compare them to what you know about yourself if you are being tested, and make your own mind up. I still feel good about the results – but have a problem with his extrapolation of the results into a statement that we should never eat anything with mould in or on it. The reason I have this problem is because mould in the form of lacto-fermented food has been with us as long as we can remember. Fermented food or drink has been made by traditional cultures from coconut juice, herbs, roots, tubers and fruit. Soaked grains are another form of lacto-fermentation, and making lacto-fermented beverage from grains greatly increases their nutritive ability. They supply us with abundant vitamins, enzymes, beneficial bacteria and lactic acid.

Sauerkraut is making a welcome comeback for health-oriented consumers. It’s a simple and effective supply of lactobaccili. Then there’s my favourite, kefir, which actually takes up residence as a beneficial fungus in the bowel. There is also a thriving industry of probiotics based on the theory that modern diet depletes the digestive system of beneficial flora.

There is a theory popular at the moment that the best way to get enzymes is by eating only raw because enzymes are destroyed in cooking. Certainly high temperatures destroy some nutrients, but cooking also makes minerals more available and makes protein more digestible by slowly ‘peeling back’ the layers so that digestive enzymes can do their job far more easily. So lacto-fermented foods and beverages will overly compensate for any enzyme loss experienced through cooking.

The real question about Dr Young’s claim that we should eat no flora/fungus/mould is whether abstaining from these foods actually does harm, and again, I have no evidence of the correlation of live blood interpretations and fungus intake. All I have is Dr Young’s word, which I have to say, gets a bit loose when he labels vinegar as mould. Most modern vinegar is simple acetic acid.

It doesn’t take a doctor or a scientist to understand that we are composed of flesh, bone, organs.. and flora. Gut bacteria may not just be helping digest food but could be exerting some control over the metabolic functions of other organs like the liver, says a new study.

These findings offer new understanding of the symbiotic relationship between humans and their gut microbes and how changes to the microbiota (microbial flora harboured by healthy individuals) can impact overall health.

'The gut microbiota enhances the host's metabolic capacity for processing nutrients and drugs,' says Sandrine Claus of the Imperial College of London, study author, the journal mBio reports.

Claus and her colleagues exposed germ-free mice to bedding that had previously been used by conventional mice with normal microbiota and followed their metabolic profiles for 20 days to observe changes as they became colonized with gut bacteria.

Over the first five days after exposure, the mice exhibited a rapid increase in weight, according to an Imperial College statement.

Colonization also triggered a number of processes in the liver in which sugars (glucose) are converted to starch (glycogen) and fat (triglycerides) for short-term and long-term energy storage.

Statistical modelling between liver metabolic functions and bug populations determined that the levels of glucose, glycogen and triglycerides in the liver were strongly associated with a single family of bugs called Coriobacteriaceae.

So it’s clear that maintaining adequate flora in the gut is an essential part of life and vitality. And reducing our intake of any form of flora/mould/fungus seems antithetical to life as it is and has been for thousands of years. It’s a symbiotic and ongoing relationship within each of us.

It’s my layman’s guess that Dr Young has fallen into the trap that so many of his scientific community have fallen into. I wonder if his study of the blood hasn’t caused him to neglect other aspects of the body’s workings and inter-relationships. We do see this happen so often when eager scientists specialising in one aspect of health try to make their niche ‘bigger’ and more important than it really is. After all, the bigger and more important the scientist can make his niche findings, the more chance he has of more funding. Dr Young is not, as far as I know, engaged in any published paper work, but he is a businessman and the acceptance of his theories does, like his peers, affect his future funding.

So it’s all very nice of uneducated me to question Dr Young’s years of study. On the net that’s so easy these days. I do respect him and his work, but the fundamental rule of science is that any theory is only possibly right until proven wrong. That’s the wonderful basis of our science; you come to a finding, you publish it, and it is peer reviewed, and if reviewed favourably, it is accepted as possible truth until someone else pops up with a better idea. The relationship between ingestion of flora and negative health results has not, at least where I can see, been scientifically proven by the good Dr Young.

I hope that the lesson of all this for myself is not to take the word of anyone just because they have letters after their name. I have a brain, and it works quite well when and if I choose to use it.

More on the lemon question

Judy emailed me this morning for the first time. Her lemon experience adds to my previous blog about lemons and alkalinity.

"Hi, Ian,
I haven’t replied before but I think our readers should know that lemons and oranges to some people can be really dangerous. My personal experience began 30 years ago when some bright doctor wrote a book recommending a morning lemon drink. Within a week I was crippled with arthritis. Thank goodness the effect is reversible but for several hours I could not move. Needless to say I found out all about oranges and lemons. I found out mandarins are different and I do very well on them but apart from the odd dash of orange or lemon in cooking I GIVE THEM A WIDE BERTH. My suggestion is to recommend the same to anyone who may have a whisper of intolerance.
Regards
Judy"

Delaware: a state taking on the hard choices.

The simple truth is that we live in amazing times. Amazing abundance, amazing life choices, and amazing change, not all for the better. 

So it's good to see the state of Delaware making the hard choices quickly when faced with the fact that their water isn't up to world standards, and may even be a precursor to higher rates of leukemia in children as well as excess risks of kidney, liver, cervical and prostate cancers, as well as lymphomas.

Two water utilities would be affected immediately by the proposed lowering of allowable limits for perchloroethylene in drinking water to 1 part per billion from the current 5 ppb level. The chemical, often called PCE or "perc," is widely used in dry cleaning, and has turned up in groundwater across Delaware and around the country.

A similar tightening is under consideration for a related solvent, tetrachloroetheylene or TCE, and vinyl chloride. All three are considered probable carcinogens. TCE and PCE are widely used as cleaning solvents in industry, while vinyl chloride is used in making plastics.

"The bottom line for me is that Delawareans aren't going to be drinking in or bathing in water with PCE in it, once these improvements are made," said Lt. Gov. Matt Denn, who began urging state health officials to consider the changes last year. "From that perspective, it's an important step forward."

Too much acid? Heartburn.

Heartburn and acid is often seen as the chicken and the egg, but it's one of the first symptoms to disappear when we withdraw carbohydrates from our diet.
Dr Wolfgang Lutz, low carb researcher and co-author of Life Without Bread says many patients would return to him and complain that the low carb diet he had recommended was no longer working and their heartburn had returned. but, he said, on examination, it usually meant that carbs had crept back into their diet.

I'm writing this because I had a 'naughty week' last week, with a luscious pizza at a local restaurant - the first in years, closely followed by the first heartburn I can remember since I went alkaline. Dr Allen, his co-author agrees. he says that patients going low carb demonstrated an immediate improvement in heartburn and stomach pain after eating - if they experienced those problems on their old diet.

So.. it appears that carbs disturb acid regulation. Normally, acid is produced from the bloodstream for the stomach when it has something to digest. Only a 'sick' stomach produces acid when it has nothing to digest. This is called 'fasting secretion' and is the reason for autodigestion seen with peptic ulcers. if you have excess gastric acid, there's a good chance of a near-future gastric ulcer. It's pretty obvious: gastric ulcers are only found in sites where contact with gastric juices is possible.

Drs Lutz and Allen both say gastritis and many types of ulcers will heal if carbs are restricted. it's an inflammation of the stomach, especially the mucous lining.Hyperacidity, or reflux, and heartburn are. they say, eliminatable (?) by carb restriction. The exeption to the rule is the gastric ulcer my dad suffered; the well-named 'callous' gastric ulcer, caused directly by stress.

I can see why. Carbs are all forms of sugar, and sugar is acidic, and acids create inflammation. I know this is simplistic, but I also understand that a low carb diet is a low acid diet. And the fundamental difference is that a diet with excess carbs is inevitably a diet with too little good, healthy, energy-producing fat.

Who is an expert? The guy that listens to one more internet rave than you.

Another mail I received today demonstrates he difficulty people have in getting the truth about alkaline ionized water. I'm reproducing parts of the emails below.

Hi, Ian,

I am doing my research and pondering how to go about getting a new waterfilter, and your AlkaWay filters make a lot of sense to me.

My naturopath pointed me to an article of Dr Mercola who thinks drinking alkaline water long term is not good for your health.

I had many problems last year with what allopathic med. described as to much stomach acid, however I now know now it is just the opposite ! - not enough.

Drinking water with apple cider when I feel pain, and adding digestive enzymes helps, and I am off all the expensive anti acid medication.

I am concerned that alka water could further lower my stomach acid,

Would you be so kind to give me your viewpoint of findings on this please.

Jane

My reply:

Hello, Jane

Yes, we are well aware of Dr Mercola's piece. It came a bit of a bombshell because up until that time I had respect for him. When I realised it was step one in a sophisticated marketing campaign move into water filters, I wasn't surprised.

He wasn't just off beam with so many things.. he received thousands of emails protesting at his inaccuracies and did nothing. At that point I realised he was up to something... and shortly after he presented his 'deal' with Mr Houston, selling the standard Aquasana water filters under his own brand.

Of course there's nothing wrong with an Aquasana filter it's a good allround entry level water filter. But it seems that to boost sales Doc Joe had to trash water ionizers and at the time I recorded a rather angry video.

It's unfortunate that the internet creates experts through the simple fact that they can send out 20 million emails a month. Joe Mercola is absolutely NOT an expert on ionized water and the man he is talking to is either way off beam or complicit in the plan to sell tons of his product.

His expertise is in selling lots of things to lots of people like you and me.

The stomach acid issue is, as you'd expect, an old one as well, and Sang Whang, author of 'Reverse Aging' explains it perfectly here:

http://www.alkalife.com/page.php?&cms=article&articleid=22

In my ten years of helping people with alkaline water I've experienced at most 3 people who had digestive problems as a result of drinking our water. In each case we simply said stop and here's your money back.

May I suggest you ask your naturopath to contact me? We have so many naturopaths recommending our water that it surprised me that he believed Dr Joe.

Trusting this is useful to you,

Ian

..and finally, Jane's reply

Hi Ian,

Thank you for this, it was very helpful.

The Naturopath is my best friend, and by now I possibly know more about water filters that she, because I have done a lot of homework on this.

She is treating me with a German bio resonance machine, and I do have results, slowly slowly.

In our conversations I mentioned that I was very impressed by your water filters and that I was considering saving up for it. She recieves Dr Mercola's newsletters, and forwarded me an article on Clucosamine, and that he now knows a better option ( a product he sells ofcourse :--) ) So I am always very interested in health and got a strong intention to shift out of bad habits I have created over the yeas and so I liked  his newsletter as well.

Now, when we both saw the info on water and his non approval I became very insecure , since my stomach acid story last year got me into a lot of painful trouble and two times swallowing that damn tube ;--) , it was Eileen Hollingsworth article that prompted me to go off the anti acids and drink vinegar as a digestive aid, and it worked wonders, so long story short, I feel once again very confident that I am steering towards your filter, and trust my own judgment there comes the second question, there are so many filters on your website, and being a five time Libra I find it hard to decide which one would be the best for me.

For now, thank you very much for your swift reply. In almost good health, Jane.

Ian: I understand that Jane has reservations. When you don't KNOW for sure the result of a change in your health regimen I always suggest checking in with your health practitioner.. which as you can see involves a need for trust on my part that the practitioner actually knows what they are talking about!

The good news is that Jane doesn't have to wait and see any more. Our new Fill2Pure bottles with alkaSachet will give her superbly filtered alkaline ionized water 24/7, or our alkaStream can attach to her faucet and provide 5000 litres per filter, all for an upfront of $399.

The times they are a-changing, and I'm happy because I can meet people where they are without this dollar hurdle preventing them from accessing relief and alkalizing their life.

Can't afford a water filter but got lots of bananas?

This study found that soaking banana skins in water will draw heavy metal;s out of the water. Kool! and probably helps the taste too - if you like bananas!

Alkaline diet; do I have to go raw and green?

I received the question above today, and it's a good one.

I was a vegetarian for 12 years.
Now I eat meat, chicken, lamb, fish, and LOTS of saturated fats. I have a coconut oil smoothie twice a day, and lots of greens. A diet like mine isn’t an alkaline diet. It’s an acid-alkaline diet and my main philosophy isn’t just alkalizing. It’s alkalizing AND as close to total carbohydrate reduction as I can. On this diet I’ve seen friends who were skinny gain weight, and friends who were obese lose weight. I eat very little fruit – a few blueberries with my coco oil smoothie.

As you can see, I'm neither raw nor green, but I'm thriving, and so is everyone I recommend my diet to. Although.. I don't actually personally recommend it to many because it's always a battle to get anyone hooked on sugar to give it up, and honestly, I don't have the time to 'convert' people one on one.

Alkaline diet as purveyed on the net still has some work to do. Over my decade of consulting I've come to see that the old axiom 'one man's meat is another man's poison' is true. We can't all leap onto the same diet. I've also noticed that the purveyors of alkaline diet are moving the same way, now saying that raw is simply too hard, and that if you keep working towards the 80/20 rule (80% alkaline ash producing foods, 20% acid ash producing foods), you'll do OK.

Most purveyors of the diet are also interested in selling you their products - and that includes us. But there are some very good people out there putting in a great deal of work to educate the public and to provide free information to all. just understand that we are all selling you our products and we are all still learning ourselves.

That being said, it's not hard to see that my diet doesn't look like the ideal alkaline diet as 'sold' on the net. Frankly, it's not, and it's the result of a huge amount of research on both my part and my partner Cassie, who is the best health researcher I know.

So let's dissect it line by line:

1. I was a vegetarian for 12 years.

I did pretty well, considering I did what almost all vegies do. It's called the lazy vegetarian syndrome.
I ate bread and pasta to fill me up. Almost all vegies do. Raw foodies, who can't have bread, get their energy form sugar in the form of fructose in fruits.
I tried to cut it out, but because it is carbs I was trying to cut out, and I wasn't willing to replace them with high voltage foods like red meat, my energy suffered. looking back on it, I'd have to say the energy I got from my sugar and carbs was all quite transitory and i still suffered the ups and downs and lack of 'earthing' that one sees so often in 'lazy vegies'.

I still don't understand it, but when I began on alkaline water, I suddenly had an urge to eat meat. When I did, I had an amazing experience. It was as if a part of me returned.. a warrior aspect of myself and it felt.. strong. I've heard of similar experiences from many alkaline water users when their body seems to come alive again and start asking for what it wants.

2. Now I eat meat, chicken, lamb, fish, and LOTS of saturated fats.
And I have energy. Strength. Endurance. Fire. I read enough of Mary Enig's and sally Fallon's Eat Fat Lose Weight book to understand that I'd been led up the garden path by experts on the fat question. To encapsulate what they and other excellent writers say, when we became carb dependent and were told to reduce fat, we lost the source of energy we previously received from fat. At the same time I was researching coconut oil and actually wrote my own book about it. Coconut oil is a saturated fat. It also worked for me to slow up my obvious first symptoms of Alzheimers'. within 3 days of going onto a double dose of coco oil and kefir smoothie daily, my mind 'twanged' up into shape.

But meat?
Let's take a quick tour of our history, courtesy of Dr Wolfgang Lutz MD in his book, Life Without Bread. Dr Lutz says:

"In the beginning, during the abiotic-biotic transition, which stretched over about a billion years, nutrients consisted of carbohydrates. later, animals lived ona mixed diet of plants and other animals. The first primates were insectivores, eating mostly animal matter (and some plant substances) whereas the apes succeeding them were mainly vegetarian, but also ate a fair amount of raw meat. As tree-dwellers, the apes' diet consisted chiefly of leaves, fruit and shoots, some meat, but little starch.

Then, about six million years ago, the hominids branched off to develop along their own lines, and this involved a transition to the life of a hunter and to a diet consisting almost exclusively of meat and fat, which formed the bulk of the human diet until a few thousand years ago."
Yes, meat. But always grassfed and organic production.

3. I have a coconut oil smoothie twice a day, and lots of greens.
We've talked about the smoothie, but not the kefir. Kefir is a mould that converts milk into a yoghurt-like form. You drop the mould into a jug of milk, wait 36 hours at room temperature, and you have kefir. You remove 'Clarence' (our name for the mould) and store him in a small jar of milk while you consume your kefir.

Both kefir and yogurt are cultured milk products…
…but they contain different types of beneficial bacteria. Yogurt contains transient beneficial bacteria that keep the digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that reside there. But kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract, a feat that yogurt cannot match.

Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, (Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species).

It also contains beneficial yeasts, such as Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir, which dominate, control and eliminate destructive pathogenic yeasts in the body. They do so by penetrating the mucosal lining where unhealthy yeast and bacteria reside, forming a virtual SWAT team that housecleans and strengthens the intestines. Hence, the body becomes more efficient in resisting such pathogens as E. coli and intestinal parasites.

Kefir’s active yeast and bacteria provide more nutritive value than yogurt by helping digest the foods that you eat and by keeping the colon environment clean and healthy. Because the curd size of kefir is smaller than yogurt, it is also easier to digest, which makes it a particularly excellent, nutritious food for babies, the elderly and people experiencing chronic fatigue and digestive disorders.




Now, if you've read Dr Robert O. Young's books and followed his web discussions, you may be wondering what the hell I'm up to, because Dr Young says we must absolutely not allow any 'mould' into our bodies. 'Mould' in his view, includes mushrooms, an excellent source of alkaline mineral potassium, and also riboflavin, niacin and selenium. He further suggests that we should not consume vinegar 'because it is fermented'. Well I can't agree. Every time we breath in, we are ingesting thousands of mould spores. We have kilos of mould within us in a symbiotic relationship with our body. Without mould, we wouldn't live a week, because mould in the form of various yeasts breaks down pathogens in our food. Mould, yeast and bacteria all play their part in fermentation and breakdown of our food into energy. Mould is used to create enzymes in the body. From what I have read, mould, fungus and bacteria act in a concerted, synergistic dance of food conversion within our body. Being synergistic, trying to eliminate one of the 'dancers' will almost certainly affect their ability to achieve their purpose; good digestion, good elimination and efficient energy conversion.

I also disagree with his definition of moulds. Surely home use, store bought vinegar today is basically acetic acid, and as such, how can it be called a mould? And yet he does. Moulds are also yoghurt, tempeh, red rice yeast and all cheese. Wines and beers have also undergone fermentation, but does it follow that when you drink a '62 Montepulciano Rosso you are ingesting live mould?

So as I said earlier, I believe there is work to be done on acid/alkaline theory by some of its proponents.

And obviously, Dr Young wouldn't be recommending my Kefir.

Finally, my diet is possible because it is an acid/alkaline diet, not an alkaline diet. i am eating and drinking ample yet not excessive amounts of good acids and in the form of daily fresh greens, good alkalis.

Chloramines and Chlorine

KINSTON, N.C. — Customers of the Neuse Regional WASA plant are reportedly seeing increased cases of rust in pipes and need for new hot water heaters,enctoday.com reported.

This is supposedly due to the plant’s decision to use chloramines, which are said to be less expensive and more effective than chlorine; however, they are known to have corrosive effects on certain pipes and hot water heaters, according to the story.

While WASA has done nothing unethical or illegal, the city has ordered them to switch back to chlorine for approximately four weeks, starting tomorrow, the article stated.

“The city’s constantly flushing their mains to help alleviate the problem, but it’s just something that you’re going to have to deal with,” said Ricky Stroud, a local plumber and owner of Ed Phillips Heating, AC & Plumbing of Kinston. “The state’s the one that mandated that you can’t pump (water) out of the ground anymore so you’re just going to have to deal with it until it’s gone”

Ian: Wow, thanks for that, Ricky. So all those older homes with brazed joints and copper pipes can look forward to a toxic brew of heavy metals every morning as they drink the result of chloramine doing it's work on their old pipes.

Lemons and Limes

I posted a tiny comment on our Facebook page this morning about limes being 150% more acid than lemons and Leigh asked for clarification. "Hi," she wrote, "would love more explanation please. I thought limes and lemons were alkaline producing when eaten?"

It's a 'given' in alkaline theory that a lemon or lime is an excellent alkalizing method. And so it is.. with a little proviso I'm about to share.


Fundamental theory
The fundamental theory of alkaline balance is that we require sufficient alkaline minerals in our alkaline buffer. This 'buffer' is actually held in the blood and in other parts of the body so that when required to neutralise excess acid, it is available. A healthy body will have enough alkaline minerals that will be used by the body to produce enough Hydroxyl ions (negative hydrogen ions) to be able to react which the acids and neutralise them.


The key to the science is the idea that it's not the amount of acids and alkalis we consume, but the amount left over after metabolism. Sang Whang, author of Reverse Aging says that an absolute majority of our foods (about 98%) is made up of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen. Only protein contains nitrogen. These are the energy givers, and they actually burn, using oxygen as the fuel. After they burn, they become acid waste, including acetic acid, cholesterol, lactic acid, fatty acids, carbonic acid, uric acid and ammonia.


The 2% of the food that isn't any of the above is alkaline and acid minerals, including potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, sulphur, chlorine, iodine etc..

So that a mere 2% of what we eat is classed as 'alkaline' if there is more of the first four above, and 'acid' if there is more acids in the 2%.


Where beginners get into trouble is trying to find 'alkaline food'. There's no such thing; all foods are a mix of acids and alkalis. Trying to live by an 'alkaline diet' will simply deprive you of the fuel that runs your body.


Now here's where I differ from the lemon argument. The lemon argument says it's a wonderful fruit because it has low-to-no sugar and a good supply of alkaline minerals that will be left over after metabolism. All true so far. But the taste of the lemon is acidic; indeed, it's loaded with citric acid. So you will stock up on your alkalis (within the limits of how much lemon juice you can drink) but you'll also be stocking up on citric acid. Just because the ratio of citric acid and alkalis is beneficial doesn't mean the citric acid can't hurt you.

You can't just change 'a little bit'.
It's my belief, (only from my own decade of observing people alkalizing), that if you are still following an acidic diet in any form, the excess acids that can't be immediately converted into salts and CO2, or released as urine, will be stored as toxins in the body fat. If you eat too much food, the excess acids that your body can't immediately handle will be shunted off into fatty tissue, where it can't hurt you, at least in the short term. It's the body's modern way of protecting the vulnerable kidneys from overload, and the rest of the body from inflammation, which is the effect of excess acids.

Lemons aren't enough..
So yes, your lemon has increased your alkali reserves, but it's odds on that if you are already excessively acidic and your body has taken this strategic retreat on, then the lovely alkalis you just got will be used up and the acetic acids will be sent off to your buttocks waist or belly fat.

Just have a think about the acid/alkaline ratio between one lemon juice and a pizza. It's obvious your lemon juice is 'wasted' as soon as it becomes available in your buffer.

My feeling is that you really need to eat less. Excess eating means excess and immediate acids and the need fro the body to take immediate action to alleviate a plunging blood pH. I have read a number of doctors who say that you'll begin converting live bone from your skeleton within hours of eating an oversize steak, just because you have to; blood pH is so important it comes first in line for remedial action. Moderate exercise also has a major part to play in burning up excess acids. Not flat-out hardcore gym work; that produces its own acids, but I find it hard to live without the benefits of my 5 km walk around the Cape most days.


An Acidic Body is Voracious
So a lemon drink in the morning is going to supply 2% or less alkaline minerals (per volume) for your alkaline buffer, but an acidic body is voracious for alkalis, and my feeling is that unless you commit to a more rounded approach to alkaline balance, you are wasting your time. Sure, a lemon will help cleanse a sluggish liver in the morning, or make you feel sharp for a while.. but the body is always working to keep that blood pH down, and you're going to have to change more about your lifestyle than a lemon drink!

I intentionally didn't finish my discussion of Hydroxyl ions as pH, because it's a bit heady. However you can download my white paper on the subject here.  It's been reproduced on countless websites round the globe, and it really does take you to the next level of understanding the difference between alkalinity and pH.

Meet Gabe!

As many people already know, we have expanded internationally and are now supplying the AlkaStream in the US, Canada and Europe as well as here in Oz and New Zealand.

We recently appointed Gabe Hunninghake as our US ambassador, and I'm copying a post he made on waterfyi.com to give you an idea of the guy.

We are very glad to be associated with people like Gabe.
 

From Gabe:

 " I was very humbled when I received the request and never anticipated being in this position.

"I intend to continue being BS free and transparent. I have a lot of thoughts swirling thru my head right now, but these seem to continue floating to the top.

1. Business should be at the service of people, not at their expense. For too many years the line between the 2 has become blurred within the ionized water industry. Most dealers are well intentioned, but management is questionable at best. How do we create a culture of service and profit?

2. Those with the ability to make a change in how the companies conduct themselves and treat each other have proven they don’t want to. It messes with the status quo. Only some new blood can initiate the improvements and shake things up a bit. [this isn't true of just ionized water mind you] Who wants to help shake?

3. This may shock many, but I don’t think alkaStream needs to hang around in the same places as electric ionizers. Not because of performance comparisons, but because alkaStream is the only company which gives us the chance start over and change the story. To shed the years of deceit, false marketing, underhanded tricks, back stabbing and confusion that have become so common placed with ionized water. How do we articulate our story and who do we need to partner with to help share it?

4. The ability to bridge the gap between filtration and ionization is unique and exciting. Each side should agree on the positives of alkaStream and finally have some common ground. We can work on both sides of the fence.

5. Not having the MLM albatross around our neck makes this a whole lot easier to introduce and market to an entirely different type of client. Those with retail shelf space who love the the price point, large newsletter audiences, affiliate programs in place and most importantly…a mindset of “clean water is best”. We can add the benefits of ionization, pH-balancing, etc, later. Who else has this opportunity?

So…it’s Saturday morning in beautiful Lawrence KS. The sun is out. There is a light breeze. I’m taking the kids to play basketball in a nearby park, we’re having a b-day party for 2 of them later and then watching my Jayhawks play for another Big12 championship.

All is good. And the future of Pure, Primitive and Preventative water is looking bright. I just made that up…it’s not the official tag line."

..and if you want to learn more, here's Gabe's site

Pink Water?

Imagine.. pink water coming out of your tap. A mass slaughter at the waterworks? Did an attendant fall into the sluice? No, say the authorities, nothing to worry about. We just put too much potassium permanganate into the supply.

Hey. I DO care about what my local authority does at the waterworks. We've seen blue green algae, we've seen overdoses of fluoride in Queensland, and even locally I've seen water from my faucet come out at pH 10! 

It's always the same response; don't worry, be happy.

Parkinsons and alkaline water

As you are aware, I'm not allowed to post stories from our users about their many health changes using our water. And I am legally bound to assure you that nothing I may - or may not - say has any value to it whatsoever and that you shouldn't take any notice of me. That's the law. 

So it's lucky for any potential researchers of the effects of alkaline water that there are people out there who do post stories by users, including stories about Parkinson's Disease. What I can say is that if you chose to do your own search on Google for beating Parkinson's Disease with alkaline water you'll work it out for yourself.

Lemon cancer cure

You have to wonder about the power of the internet to propagate medical myths. This morning I received this one from a friend who asked me to comment....

"Lemon (Citrus ) is a miraculous product to kill cancer cells . It is 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy .

Why do we not know about that? Because there are laboratories interested in making a synthetic version that will bring them huge profits. You can now help a friend in need by letting him/her know that lemon juice is beneficial in preventing the disease. Its taste is pleasant and it does not produce the horrific effects of chemotherapy. How many people will die while this closely guarded secret is kept, so as not to jeopardize the beneficial multimillionaires large corporations? As you know, the lemon tree is known for its varieties of lemons and limes. You can eat the fruit in different ways: you can eat the pulp, juice press, prepare drinks, sorbets, pastries, etc... It is credited with many virtues, but the most interesting is the effect it produces on cysts and tumors. This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types. Some say it is very useful in all variants of cancer . It is considered also as an anti microbial spectrum against bacterial infections and fungi, effective against internal parasites and worms, it regulates blood pressure which is too high and an antidepressant, combats stress and nervous disorders.

The source of this information is fascinating: it comes from one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world, says that after more than 20 laboratory tests since 1970, the extracts revealed that: It destroys the malignant cells in 12 cancers , including colon, breast, prostate, lung and pancreas ... The compounds of this tree showed 10,000 times better than the product Adriamycin, a drug normally used chemotherapeutic in the world, slowing the growth of cancer cells. And what is even more astonishing: this type of therapy with lemon extract only destroys malignant cancer cells and it does not affect healthy cells."

My comment?
Show me the money! The money being the 20 tests they refer to. I feel strongly about emailed cancer cures. This is people's lives in deep distress we are talking to. What do you want them to do? Rush off and drink the juice of fifty lemons? 

Bleach in Sewers

San Francisco is spending $14million bucks on bleach to clean sewers. Why because low flow toilets don't move the sludge fast enough. So once again, a good idea; watersaving toilets.. demonstrates how we are all part of one big system. Change something here, see the effect there.

Hard water and water ionizers do NOT get on

If your water supply is hard - meaning it has high calcium content - here's a good strategy to protect your ionizer. 

You see, AlkaWay ionizers have excellent protection for their ionizer cell through patented DARC - Double Acting Reverse Cleanse, which alternately bathes all faces of the ionizer plates in acid then alkaline water. But when high alkaline and calcium water leaves the cell, problems can occur. 

To check yours, take a look at the end of your spout. Does it have calcium accretion? If so, you may be shortening your lifespan. (Sorry, your Ionizer's not your lifespan!)

So what to do? Well, there is a simple answer. If you have set your ionizer on alkaline level 3, then set it on the same level of acid water for a week. This reverses all the plumbing and water flow post-ionizer cell, so all those built-up pipes will get acid water flowing through the instead of alkaline, and the acid water will reduce built-up accretion. The only small downside is that you will have to collect your alkaline drinking water from the acid hose during this period.

Endocrine Disruptors identified in Algal Bloom

We haven't had any reports of algal bloom in our water supply since all of our rain, but remember not so long ago when blue-green algae was multiplying fast in remote water supplies? Now we find that it has endocrine disruptors in it. Add that to the lengthening list of new things found in our water supply.

Got Nematodes in your Garden? Don't feed them our water!

This study tested nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegan) in ultrapure water and in alkaline ionised water. The nematodes were stressed using Paraquat and the performance of the nematodes in antioxidant ability was measured.

Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2010 Oct 23;74(10):2011-5. Epub 2010 Oct 7.

Extension of the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans by the use of electrolyzed reduced water.

Yan H, Tian H, Kinjo T, Hamasaki T, Tomimatsu K, Nakamichi N, Teruya K, Kabayama S, Shirahata S.

Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Japan.

Abstract

Electrolyzed reduced water (ERW) has attracted much attention because of its therapeutic effects. In the present study, a new culture medium, which we designated Water medium, was developed to elucidate the effects of ERW on the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans. Wild-type C. elegans had a significantly shorter lifespan in Water medium than in conventional S medium. However, worms cultured in ERW-Water medium exhibited a significantly extended lifespan (from 11% to 41%) compared with worms cultured in ultrapure water-Water medium. There was no difference between the lifespans of worms cultured in ERW-S medium and ultrapure water-S medium. Nematodes cultured in ultrapure water-Water medium showed significantly higher levels of reactive oxygen species than those cultured in ultrapure water-S medium. Moreover, ERW-Water medium significantly reduced the ROS accumulation induced in the worms by paraquat, suggesting that ERW-Water medium extends the longevity of nematodes at least partly by scavenging ROS.

PMID: 20944427 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

The Studies just keep coming!

This Taiwanese study measured T-Cell damage in cancer patients with and without alkaline ionised water.

Electrolysed-reduced water dialysate improves T-cell damage in end-stage renal disease patients with chronic haemodialysis.

Huang KC, Hsu SP, Yang CC, Ou-Yang P, Lee KT, Morisawa S, Otsubo K, Chien CT.

Department of Family Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine and National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: T-cell damage by increased oxidative stress in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients undergoing chronic haemodialysis (HD) led to the increased T-cell apoptosis and the alteration of surface markers and Th1/Th2 ratio in CD4(+) T lymphocytes. Antioxidant electrolysed-reduced water (ERW) was used as the dialysate in ESRD patients undergoing chronic HD to test for improved oxidative stress-related T-cell apoptosis, alterations of surface markers and intracellular cytokine profile.

METHODS: We evaluated apoptosis formation by annexin V, CD25-related surface markers, and cytokine ratio of Th1/Th2 in CD4(+) T lymphocytes and Tc1/Tc2 in CD8(+) T lymphocytes of 42 ESRD patients haemodialysed with ERW for 1 year.

RESULTS: In comparison to 12 healthy individuals, the ESRD patients had more T-cell apoptosis and less CD3(+), CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells and CD25/CD69/CD94/CD3(+) phenotypes at baseline. Lower intracellular IL-2 and IFN-gamma levels in the Th1/CD4(+) and Tc1/CD8(+) cells and higher intracellular IL-4, IL-6 and IL-10 levels in the Th2/CD4(+) and Tc2/CD8(+) cells were also noted in the ESRD patients. After a 1-year ERW treatment, the patients had a decrease in T-cell apoptosis and increases in CD3(+), CD4(+) and CD8(+) cell numbers and CD25/CD69/CD94/CD3(+) phenotypes in the T cells. The intracellular IL-2 and IFN-gamma levels in the Th1/Tc1 cells significantly (P < 0.05) increased and the intracellular IL-4, IL-6 and IL-10 levels in the Th2/Tc2 cells decreased. Furthermore, the Th1/Th2 and Tc1/Tc2 cytokine ratios were improved toward a normal status.

CONCLUSION: One-year ERW treatment effectively ameliorated T-cell apoptosis, altered CD25-related surface markers and intracellular cytokine profile in the HD patients.

Dan Ross: new Breed of Surfer

We are a small company and therefore new to the world of sponsorship. When we learned that alkaline ionized water didn't take off in Japan until some Japanese celebrities endorsed it, we wondered what and how we might get into the field of sponsorship.

Personally, I've always had a problem with the obvious endorsements I see on TV. I know, we know, and everyone else knows that the endorsee is just saying what he or she has been told to say for money.

Enter Dan Ross.  Dan is a surfer. The real thing. He lives to surf. He's in the top 50 ASP surfers in the world. He lives at Yamba a small mid-North coast surf town, and has teamed up with Stu Bowen, his best mate and 'manager'. That's how we learned about Dan and Stu. Stu bought an AlkaWay water ionizer and loves it, recommending it to anyone within shouting range, including past world champ Mick Fanning. Dan drinks alkaline water during his rigorous daily training, and right now he's competing in the QuickSilver Pro on the Gold Coast - his first contest for over a year after severe damage to a shoulder in a  surf accident. He's been doing endurance work, weight work, breath work and drinking the water.. every day. 

So far I could be talking about any young pro surfer.. but Dan (and Stu) are different. They approached us because they have chosen to only be involved with people with whom their values agree. They are both serious conservationists. Stu runs Fresh Mullet, a great surfblog that's rated in the top 500 blogs in the world by Alexa. They are both into organic food, healthy lifestyle and - how can I say it without sounding trite - they really do live their values. Their other major sponsor is Patagonia, the outdoor wear and equipment people. Patagonia also live their values, including buying 2 million acres in Patagonia for the simple purpose of preservation of natural habitat.

We spent some time between heats with Dan and Stu yesterday, and its what I'll call 'alkaline' energy that impresses. They aren't laidback in terms of lazy. They are intent, they are open, but they both have time for you, time to listen, time to share space. Knowing they'll probably read this I don't want to carry on too much, but I'm inspired. Not just by the 'vibe', but by these two young men choosing against the way the surf industry has gone - get as many sponsors as I can while I can for as much as I can'. They are actively pursuing a future in line with their values of healthy lifestyle, of environmental awareness, of low impact lifestyle, and of giving back. Take a look at Dan and you may see what I see in him; the future citizen of our fragile world. 

Stu, Ian and Dan

Is there some sort of measuring stick for happiness? If so...

..then these guys 'sticks' are a millimetre long at most.

This article talks about measuring happiness in people who are (clinically speaking) 'locked' in their bodies. These people can only communicate through eye movements. 

The disease "traps" people in their own body, able to think, but incapable of moving or talking.

A French study of 65 patients, published in the British Medical Journal's BMJ Open, found 72% reported being happy, with just 7% wanting help to commit suicide.

Experts said it showed it would be unwise to make assumptions about people's mental state. About half of those questioned, 55%, had recovered some speech and 70% had recovered some limb movement.

68% said they never had suicidal thoughts.

The study also found that the longer people were locked-in, the more likely they were to be happy.

Ian: Boy, this gives me a new view on my own 'miseries' that I hang onto. It also makes me see that our individual happiness is proscribed by our own attitudes to what we perceive as life. If we think big in terms of mind horizons, we are capable of dreaming big, and therefore capable of enjoying the realms of our big dreams. So is there any point in comparing my happiness (or lack thereof) with anyone else's happiness? Isn't it just about how big the measuring stick I choose to use?