ECOsmarte blog

Major contributor to this article Larry Couture, our ECOsmarte CEO. His mind never stops working and periodically he offers up a topic of interest - This one is important and enlightening...

Ionized Micro Water Devices
Known by many names: ionized water, high pH structured water, alkaline water, energized water, micro-water, micro-clustered water, reduced water, or ionic mineral water (and that's not all of them), what they all have in common is high pH, or alkalinity. The measure of acidity and alkalinity is called pH. The range is from 0 to 14, with neutral being 7. There are many people that adhere to the belief that alkaline water is good for you.

Why Do People Drink Alkaline/High pH Water?
Here's the basic theory. Our bodies are normally slightly alkaline, from 7.2 to 7.6. All our cells are slightly alkaline and must remain that way to stay healthy and alive. Disease is known to thrive in an acidic environment in the body and will not do well in an alkaline environment. If we have chronic acidic conditions in our bodies we become vulnerable to disease. The more acidic our body is, the more susceptible we are to disease. When blood pH is acidic people are usually very sick and high pH waters consumed help increase the blood pH.

The body tends to become more acidic with age. A 1996 study entitled "Age and Systemic Acid-Base Equilibrium: Analysis of Published Data" by Anthony Sebastian, MD and Lynda Frassetto, MD at University of California at San Francisco showed that at about the age of 45, acid wastes accumulated in the body start to overwhelm the body's capacity to buffer acidic conditions. How does your body buffer the acid up to that point? You're not going to like this. By dipping into its reserve of bicarbonates (calcium, magnesium and potassium) - read BONES here (and organs, too). Bicarbonate minerals are an alkalizing component, countering the acidity. Your body responds with short term fix that has long term consequences. This theory explains why we lose bone density and become more susceptible to disease as we age.

Why do our bodies become acidic? Well, all cells produce waste, which is acidic. You eat food, metabolize it, and the end waste product is also acidic. These wastes leave our bodies through perspiration (so get out there and sweat) and urine. Other contributors of acid conditions in the body are quite interesting to take a look at.

Diet is a major factor. Rather than go into the details here, there are many places online where you can find lists of what to eat to encourage alkalinity in your body. As you could probably guess, the "bad" list contains the usual: meats, dairy products, coffee (ouch), sweets, soft drinks, microwaved food, fast food, processed food, etc.

Drinking/Cooking Water is mega-important. The various chemicals put into water to sanitize it are all acidic, esp. Chlorine. So, hmmm... let's think about what really happens when you use reverse osmosis for your drinking/cooking water. You are removing all the minerals, as well as all the nasty chemicals. But minerals are an alkaline component in water, so yes, you are creating acidic, albeit clean, water. Test it with a pH strip if you don't believe me.
Showering/Bathing Water is the probably the most important. It is the component that could actually cancel out all your efforts with diet and drinking water. Here's why. Unless you have a whole house water system that removes the Chlorine and other sanitizing toxins, your body will absorb five times more acidic water through your skin membrane than you could ever drink and cook with. The vaporizing of the Chlorine and direct inhalation into your lungs is acidic as well. Efforts towards alkalizing your body without filtering your shower water would be an exercise in futility.

So where does ECOsmarte come in?
Well, ECOsmarte water systems change the minerals in the water to bicarbonates, which is exactly what you need to buffer the acid, so that your body does not continue to tap your reserves.Conventional biology recognizes that water with calcium, regardless of pH, is absorbed through the stomach wall, minerals broken down by gastric acid, which all become part of the blood. Our bicarbonate calcium is soluble, more bio-available, and takes less gastric acid to break down when the calcium is in bicarbonate form-- important for older people with weaker stomach acids. ECOsmarte has had many instances over the years of customers calling in to tell us that their various illnesses have dramatically improved or even disappeared after installing an ECOsmarte whole house water filtration system. This is all anecdotal, but seems to be supported by the theories and claims of the proponents of alkaline/high pH water.

For you readers who are already owners of a high pH water device, ECOsmarte filtration and bicarbonate calcium reduce the damage the city water causes on these portable units that can self destruct in a matter of months without pretreatment due to scale and chemical damage. Plus, our whole house water filtration and treatment will turn your shower/bath into the healthy, alkaline place you've been looking for!

Alkaline/pH/ionized water stories/comments welcome...