A Quick Response to Dr Mercola’s Alkaline Water Article

I’m disappointed that Dr Mercola led with such a sensationalist headline because the interview actually heavily supports the use of the Chanson. In fact, in the interview both Dr Mercola and his water filter expert both say on multiple occasions:

a) that alkaline water is best
b) that antioxidants are great
c) that filtration is essential

The fact of the matter is that I could go away right now and find at least ten different articles all supporting or detracting any approach to health, treatment or alternative medicine including ones that are so proven, that you can even get them through a GP nowadays. Acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, and even reiki of course. I am sure you are often seeing detracters of reiki, but the thing is – everyone is entitled to have an opinion. And now with the internet, it is possible for everyone’s opinion to be heard (ultimately a good thing of course).

Referring to my example above, I actually had acupuncture last week through a GP on the national health system here in Australia. That is how widely accepted it is, yet one of the most prominent pages in my google search on the topic is this: http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/acu.html

Now, with regards to the specifics of Dr Mercola’s interview, I have listened to it (as soon as it came out) and have read the transcript too because I personally get more understanding from reading – but I have not responded on my blog because the content in here actually supports the Chanson ionizers! Here are some extracts and my take:

One of the primary ones is that most all of them are multilevel marketing systems. They are very expensive.

He is, of course, referring to Kangen which is an old outdated machine still being retailed for more than double the price of the Chanson. I am still very proud of how affordable we’ve made such a high quality machine.

“Now, the argument of alkaline versus acidic water: which is best? I’ve been and seen both sides of the fence. I personally, I feel that if you’re close to 7, you can’t be all that wrong. I personally believe that alkaline is better for you.”

So, here they are agreeing that alkaline water is better for you. And they are referring to the ionized, alkaline water that they are concerned with as being…:

“At a level of 10 or 12 or 13 on the pH scale”

I would never advise drinking anything above pH 9.5 and you’ll have seen your manual says the same and the Chanson sounds a continual warning when the pH is above 9.5.

“So I like to keep it as simple and basic and as close as to what we find in the natural environment as possible.”

Natural water in a perfect environment is alkaline, and contains the electrical charge from crashing through rivers, springs waterfalls etc. This is the water we were designed to drink. The ionizers create as close to possible this natural environment.

“Our water should have minerals in it.”

The Chanson filter leaves the soluble (healthy) minerals in. In fact, the ionizer couldn’t work without them. If you use a reverse osmosis filter to prefilter the water before you use the ionizer you actually have to buy a remineralising canister to put the minerals back in because the ionizer needs them to work! So this part of the interview is nonsense to suggest that ionizing removes all of the minerals.

He then goes on to say:

“The reason why I personally and this is just my personal opinion feel that alkaline water is optimal is because by definition you can’t have free radicals in an alkaline environment.”

And also hence why the ionized, alkaline, antioxidant rich (i.e. free radical scavenging) water is very beneficial and this is exactly what you get from a Chanson.

“This is a short lived industry”

Chanson have been in water filtration for 23 years and ionization for 10.

And that’s it. I hope this helps put your mind at ease. He is referring throughout this interview to the Kangen machines, which are terribly out of date and use chemicals to unnaturally alter the pH of the water to a very high level, rather than the ionization process. The Kangen machines also do not contain any level of safe filtration, unlike the Chanson.

Have a great afternoon
Ross