In an article by Mrs Jan Roberts, in the Nexus Magazine, issue 19, it is claimed that drinking alkaline water causes health problems. Is this true?

• The quoted article from the Australian pharmacist Jan Roberts, from 2008, is titled: Is alkaline water healthy? It appeared before in English in the magazine Informed Voice and quite surprised the water ionizing branch, since this was the first big attack on this technology from a pharmaceutical perspective. It was investigated and it became clear that Mrs Roberts was employed for a filter company and therefore must have seen a rival product in alkaline water, an interest that she had kept secret. It is still worth it to deal with her arguements seriously, since you can reflect on what the manufacturers and distributors of water ionizers have placed and are placing thoughtlessly into the world. Historically seen, the article of Mrs Roberts has contributed to a conceptual clarification and education in Germany of the nowadays established definition “alkaline activated water”. I would like to go through the article point for point, even if my reasoning should repeat itself or overlap. I will cross reference where useful.
• Mrs Roberts begins with a criticism of the inaccurate definition “alkaline water”, which back then was dominant. Since the English speaking world was in tune with the Japanese inventors and researchers about “alkaline water”, many sales representatives had ignored a quickly growing market, everything that can make water alkaline. Even though this all depends on its composition, most think only about minerals. Gases do influence the pH value in liquids much more. The solubility of these gases depend on the temperature. Acidic carbon dioxide has practically disappeared from the water when at more or less 60 degrees, so that a hot bath is mostly alkaline, an “alkaline bath salt additive” is not needed. Most of these additives don’t make water alkaline at all, yet rather acidic.
• To professionally measure the pH value of water, it should be, as a rule, degased beforehand. This does not happen when reviewing water ionizers, so you don’t have an absolutely correct pH value. This criticism is objectively correct, yet, as a result, doesn’t change much, since tap water, which is used as a measurement comparison, is also not degased previously. Furthermore, consumers usually don’t degas drinks beforehand. Acidic gases do not play a role when assessing drinks.
• Moreover Mrs Roberts makes a reference, that a pH value is a relative value between acids and bases, so a relative strength of two counterparts, yet says nothing about their individual endurance, which is called buffering capacity. Without a buffering capacity a pH value in water means nothing. This is correct, as well as completely trivial. Mrs Roberts calls the buffering capacity of alkaline water low, as opposed to a strongly buffered hydrochloric acid. This is also correct and with regard to alkaline activated water was already analysed scientifically in the 90’s. An alkaline activated water practically does not sink the pH value of an active stomach. But Mrs Roberts neglects to ask the question, where does the buffering capacity really lie with alkaline water. This also depends on the grade of mineralisation, for there is very soft alkaline activated water and very hard alkaline activated water, which features a higher buffer. It also depends on which type of minerals are ionized together with the activated water.
• Yet Mrs Roberts simply wrote the unevaluated sentence, which has been heard countless times from advocates of reverse osmosis, in which she untruthfully claims: “The mineral content of common tap water is negligible. The alkalinity effect is too small, to be measurable.” (Page 13). It really seems to be like that in Mrs Roberts Australian home land, for there one is mainly instructed to use rain water cisterns or one uses desalinated sea water. It seems though, that Mrs Roberts has never grappled with the facts of European drinking water analysis.

• We still have not talked about alkaline activated water, who’s mineral content during the procedure of electrolysis at the cost of the acidic water gets compressed. A controlled measurement in Munich with freshly produced alkaline activated water pH 9,5 from tap water has a gain of 30 mg calcium and 10 mg magnesium!

• The same ignorance is illustrated by the quoted American bestseller author Andrew Weil on page 15, who is mistaken or is consciously lying when he says in 1999: “This mindset is not supported by any kind of scientific analysis”. Even the many studies from many Russian water researchers through Prilutzky and Bakhir with 165 scientific sources; these statements were published 2 years before Mr Weil’s testimony in English. —> Russian research. Also the Japanese and Korean research was known in the USA since 1990 from the book “Reverse Aging”, by S. Whang, which today is still a bestseller in many countries. Also the German electrolyte water therapy – since 1938 registered in Germany as a specialty medicine – was already published in English in an article by Albert A. Riedel. Mr Weil had only to read the sources. For some time we haven’t heard anything from him about this topic, yet his statements from 1999 are still eagerly quoted by opponents of water ionizing.
• A further authority is quoted on page 14 by Mrs Roberts, the “Health Department of the University of Columbia, USA”. This claim could not have done without a certain amount of boldness. Should one research the given source (http://tinyurl.com/6x82j5), then you do not stumble on to an official statement, but rather on to a blog of a certain “Alice” from 9.6.2006, who describes the whole procedure of acid/base balance with school textbook level to a healthy person and doesn’t even go into activated alkaline water or chronic hyperacidity.