Don't be taken in by 'benefits' of alkali water (by Dr Yik Keng Yeong )

The following is a letter by Dr Yik Keng Yeong to the ST Forum of the Straits Times dated 15 November 2010.

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Don't be taken in by 'benefits' of alkali water

OF LATE, more and more patients have been approaching family practitioners asking whether the ingestion of alkali water has a salutary effect on health.

Insofar as I know, no reputable scientific or medical journal has recorded any beneficiary effects of alkaline or ionised water. The structure of the human digestive system is such that the potent acids of the stomach will quickly neutralise whatever small amount - if any - of alkali water made in an ionising machine and ingested orally.

At any rate, these acidic contents from the stomach, once emptied into the intestines, encounter the strong alkaline digestive juices secreted by the pancreas, so the visceral contents turn naturally alkaline.

Adding either acid or alkali to the diet is therefore superfluous as the physiology of the human body just does not need such meddling - acid-base homeostasis being judiciously regulated by the lungs and the kidneys.

Makers of alkali/ionising water machines exploit credulous patients by proclaiming their nostrum as a panacea for curing everything from hair loss to osteoporosis to cancer. Sadly, unsuspecting patients are hoodwinked by their claims which are impressively supported by reams of gobbledegook masquerading as science.

The health authorities should come out against this practice and arrest this trend among the gullible.

Dr Yik Keng Yeong