If you frequent social media, you’ve probably seen the hype around alkaline water.

With all kinds of claims around its effectiveness in helping you care for your body, remove toxins, and stay looking younger for longer, it seems like this is a kind of miracle cure, right?

In a recent study by IFLScience, these claims were investigated to see whether the pricey water really is all it claims to be.

And, just as importantly, whether it is actually worth your hard-earned cash.

But what actually is alkaline water? To help demystify this curious topic, IFLScience explains that the concept behind alkaline water really is quite simple.

Alkaline is just water. While normal bottled water has a pH of around 7, which is considered neutral, any water with a pH above 7 is considered to be alkaline.

So, at best, alkaline water is just normal water that is slightly higher on the pH scale.

At worst, it is outside of the range recommended by EPA for safe drinking water (pH 6.5 to 8.5).

So where do these claims of health benefits come from?

Well, there are some vague correlations from early studies that indicate the possibility of benefits from drinking alkaline water.

Though a 2017 study from researchers in Katowice, Poland discovered that “athletes hydrated with alkaline, low mineralized water demonstrated favourable changes in hydration status,” the reality of these claims, is that this preliminary study was very small, with data not representative enough to deliver reliable conclusions.

In addition, the report explores the science behind the claims that alkaline water can prevent, or even treat painful kidney stones. In the case of this claim, the results weren’t even vague.

Touching on research from the University of California, Irvine, the report explains that there was no difference between tap water and alkaline water when it comes to kidney stones.

Any suggestion on the contrary is nonsense, claims Dr Roshan M. Patel, lead author on the study:

“While alkaline water products have a higher pH than regular water, they have a negligible alkali content, which suggests that they can’t raise urine pH enough to affect the development of kidney and other urinary stones.”

In response to the widespread suggestions that alkaline water has anti-aging effects, however, the jury is still out.

A study on mice, published in 2020 by researchers at the Department of Oncology and Molecular Medicine, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, found that “watering by using alkaline water supplementation highly improves aging at the molecular level.”

However, there is currently no reliable evidence that, in humans, alkaline water will keep us looking young any longer than proper hydration with regular water does.

Alkaline water is probably not any better for you than regular water, the science seems to indicate. But could it actually be worse for your health?

Well, again there is little in the way of reliable evidence for or against this point, but the article does offer one word of warning.

If you are on certain types of medication – particularly protein pump inhibitors, which change the pH in your stomach – you might want to steer well clear of alkaline water.

So, with no reliable scientific evidence, there seems to be relatively little point in buying this expensive kind of water, unless you are particularly keen on the slightly more alkaline taste.

But really. Wouldn’t regular water do?

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