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By: Sang Whang
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Among the people who question the validity of
alkaline water, the biggest question is, "What happens to the alkaline water once it
reaches the stomach, which is highly acidic?" People who have some knowledge of the
human body, including medical doctors, ask this question. Let me answer that question once
and for all to erase any doubts about the health benefits of alkaline water.
In order to digest food and kill the kinds of
bacteria and viruses that come with the food, the inside of our stomach is acidic. The
stomach pH value is maintained at around 4. When we eat food and drink water, especially
alkaline water, the pH value inside the stomach goes up. When this happens, there is a
feedback mechanism in our stomach to detect this and commands the stomach wall to secrete
more hydrochloric acid into the stomach to bring the pH value back to 4. So the stomach
becomes acidic again. When we drink more alkaline water, more hydrochloric acid is
secreted to maintain the stomach pH value. It seems like a losing battle.
However, when you understand how the stomach wall
makes hydrochloric acid, your concerns will disappear. A pathologist friend of mine gave
me the following explanation. There is no hydrochloric acid pouch in our body. If there
were, it would burn a hole in our body. The cells in our stomach wall must produce it on
an instantly-as-needed basis. The ingredients in the stomach cell that make hydrochloric
acid (HCl) are carbon dioxide (CO2), water (H2O), and sodium
chloride (NaCl) or potassium chloride (KCl).
NaCl + H2O + CO2
= HCl + NaHCO3, or
KCl + H2O + CO2 = HCl + KHCO3
As we can see, the byproduct of making hydrochloric
acid is sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) or potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3), which goes into
blood stream. These bicarbonates are the alkaline buffers that neutralize excess acids in
the blood; they dissolve solid acid wastes into liquid form. As they neutralize the solid
acidic wastes, extra carbon dioxide is released, which is discharged through the lungs. As
our body gets old, these alkaline buffers get low; this phenomenon is called acidosis.
This is a natural occurrence as our body accumulates more acidic waste products. There is,
therefore, a relationship between the aging process and the accumulation of acids.
By looking at the pH value of the stomach alone, it
seems that alkaline water never reaches the body. But when you look at the whole body,
there is a net gain of alkalinity as we drink alkaline water. Our body cells are slightly
alkaline. In order for them to produce acid, they must also produce alkaline, and vice
versa; just as a water ionizer cannot produce alkaline water without producing acid water,
since tap water is almost neutral.
When the stomach pH value gets higher than 4, the
stomach knows what to do to lower it. However, if the pH value goes below 4, for any
reason, the stomach doesn’t know what to do. That’s why we take Alka-Seltzer,
which is alkaline, to relieve acidic stomach gas pain. In this case, hydrochloric acid is
not produced by the stomach wall, therefore, no alkaline buffer is being added to the
blood stream.
Let me give you another example of a body organ that
produces acid in order to produce alkaline. After the food in the stomach is digested, it
must come out to the small intestine. The food at this point is so acidic that it will
damage the intestine wall. In order to avoid this problem, the pancreas makes alkaline
juice (known as pancreatic juice). This juice is sodium bicarbonate, and is mixed with the
acidic food coming out of the stomach. From the above formulae, in order to produce
bicarbonates, the pancreas must make hydrochloric acid, which goes into our blood stream.
We experience sleepiness after a big meal (not
during the meal or while the food is being digested in the stomach), when the digested
food is coming out of the stomach; that’s the time when hydrochloric acid goes into
our blood. Hydrochloric acid is the main ingredient in antihistamines and that is what
causes drowsiness.
Alkaline or acid produced by the body must have an
equal and opposite acid or alkaline produced by the body; therefore, there is no net gain.
However, alkaline supplied from outside the body, like drinking alkaline water, results in
a net gain of alkalinity in our body.
Copyright 1997 by Sang Whang Enterprises, Inc.
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by: Sang Whang
Water sustains all forms of life, including human
life. The Chinese character "sea" consists of three parts, namely water, man and
mother. In other words, sea is the mother of mankind. Although water is all around us, it
is one of the most mysterious substances on this planet. Scientists are still discovering
amazing facts about water.
Most substances are lightest in the gas state,
heavier in the liquid state and heaviest in solid form. However, water gets lighter in its
solid form than in its liquid form, that’s why ice floats in water. If water didn’t
have this mysterious property, lakes and ponds would freeze from the bottom up in the cold
of winter, killing all living things within them. One can appreciate the great wisdom of
the Creator in the preservation of life. Water not only sustains life, but also protects
it.
More than 70% of our body weight is water; that
translates into about 10 gallons of water for a person of 120 lbs. It is very important to
have a good understanding of water and to drink the right kind of water. Water is a strong
solvent; therefore, it carries many invisible ingredients: minerals, oxygen, nutrients,
waste products, pollutants, etc. Sea water is salty because, through eons, it dissolved
minerals and salts from the mountains and carried them down stream to the ocean. Inside
the human body, blood (90% of which is water) circulates throughout the body distributing
nutrients and oxygen, and collecting wastes and carbon dioxides, delivering them to the
disposal organs. If water was not a strong solvent, it could not perform these functions.
Water molecule is H2O; that is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom stuck together. The shape of
the water molecule is like a Mickey Mouse face; the head is oxygen and the two ears are
hydrogen1). Since oxygen is
electrically negative and hydrogen is positive, the water molecule is electrically
polarized. For this reason, a water molecule cannot exist independently; it must combine
with other water molecules to form a five- or six-sided structure called a water cluster2). In lower temperatures,
most of the structures are hexagonal; therefore, snow flakes are hexagonal.
In distilled water, at room temperature,
one out of 10 million (1 in 107) water molecules is ionized. When a water molecule is ionized, it is split into
hydrogen ions H+ and hydroxyl ions OH-. Neutral water means that the
number of hydrogen ions equals the number of hydroxyl ions in a container. The number is
10-7 times the entire number of
water molecules in that container (that number we will call N). We abbreviate this
by saying that the water has a pH value of 72).
Acid water has a larger number of hydrogen
ions than that of hydroxyl ions. For example, the number of hydrogen ions in acid water,
with a pH value of 4, is 10-4 times N, and that of hydroxyl ion is 10-10 times N. The law of nature is such that the exponents must add up to 14
(4+10). The number of hydrogen ions in alkaline water, with a pH value of 9, is 10-9 times N, and that of hydroxyl ion is
10-5 times N. Note that 10-5 is larger than 10-9 by 10,000 times and, again, 5+9 is 14. Because the exponents must add up to 14,
pH value of 7 is considered neutral. Since the value of pOH is 14 minus the value of pH,
we don’t measure nor mention its value; it will be known once the pH value is known.
For that reason, there are only pH meters and no pOH measuring instruments3).
Since alkaline water has more OH-s
than H+s, there are more oxygen atoms in it than in neutral water; that’s
why alkaline water is sometimes called oxygen rich water. In the same manner, acid water
is oxygen deficient water. An interesting trivial fact is that there are approximately 1025 H2O molecules in a 10 ounce glass of water. If that water has a pH value of 10,
there are approximately 1021
hydroxyl ions (OH-) and approximately 1015 hydrogen ions (H+). The number of hydrogen ions is one millionth of
that of hydroxyl ions, which is negligible.
It is this abundant amount of
hydroxyl ions that neutralizes acid hydrogen ions in our body to reduce the accumulated
acid wastes, thus reversing the aging process.
1) Emiliani, Cesare - The Scientific
Companion, John Wiley & Sons, 1988
2) Aihara, Herman - Acid & Alkaline, George Ohwawa Macrobiotic Foundation,
Oroville, CA, 1986
3) Whang, Sang - Reverse Aging, JSP Publishing,
Miami, FL 1990
Copyright 1997 by Sang Whang Enterprises, Inc. |
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