In the previous article, I mentioned my first encounter with alkaline diets. Let me now tell you my first encounter with alkaline water. A close family friend told us about this new product in the market – black water called Evocus. He rattled off some amazing properties of this product like having over 70 minerals in it along with a bunch of health benefits like in the screenshot below from their website.

Let me give you a bit of a spoiler. All but one of these benefits of alkaline water from this brand, or any other, don’t hold true. Evocus Black Alkaline water is just a very expensive, dodgy product that will only be a very expensive, rather ineffective antacid and nothing more. But I will get to each of these claims and a few other generic claims I’ve found about alkaline water in this post, so you can understand why I say this.

But first, let’s recap, in the last article, I’ve clearly shown that the body’s pH balance is super hard to change for several reasons, namely:

the digestive system first acidifies everything you eat and then alkalises it to bring it back to neutral
The body automatically keeps the blood’s alkaline level stable by pulling out carbonic acid and carbon dioxide (respiratory) and the other acidic compounds and waste products through the kidneys (metabolic).
Shifting the acid-alkaline balance of the body is not possible through the food and drinks we consume. It’s a symptom of far deeper, more serious problems and will certainly lead to the need for hospitalisation.

This does cover the basics of why what you eat doesn’t affect your body in the ways we are led to believe. But I wanted to dig deeper into this topic because it’s essential to understand what alkaline diets and water claim and why they are wrong.

Fact-checking the benefits of alkaline water

I recently read this in an article when I was looking up alkaline water and found a few claims that I couldn’t resist looking into. It turns out Evocus and generic alkaline water have a lot of common claims. So, first, let’s look at Evocus’s claims and then we’ll pick up whatever’s left out.

Immediate Benefits

Reduces Acidity
This is actually true! We even got a testimonial from the Evocus management team during their launch press conference. It treated one member’s acidity. A study in 2012 found that alkaline water with a pH of 8.8 can neutralise pepsin, an enzyme in the digestive tract related to the production of hydrochloric acid – one of the digestive juices in your stomach. But this was in a lab and not in a human or animal, so it’s not good evidence. However, just talking chemistry, alkaline things react with acidic things to bring it closer to neutral. So if you’ve got heartburn, it’s likely that drinking alkaline water will reduce your acidity, giving you some relief. But we already have much more effective and cheaper remedies like antacids, so why even go to alkaline water?
Superior hydration!
One explanation I’ve seen offered for this claim is that water molecules in alkaline water are smaller and lead to better hydration at the cellular level! Excuse me? We’ve gone from breaking the laws of biology to breaking the laws of physics! Something’s pH level is determined by the properties of its molecules. It can either donate a proton and accept a neutron (acid) or donate an electron and accept a proton in a chemical reaction. Water is neutral in its natural state. The only way to change its pH is to DISSOLVE another substance in it with a different pH. And the sizes of molecules don’t change based on what’s dissolved in it. This is just absolute blatant nonsense that they’ve mentioned as a “scientific” explanation.
Replenishes your energy
It claims that 70+ natural minerals it contains can replenish your body’s energy. I have a couple of problems with this. First, there’s no mention of these 70+ minerals they’ve added. The bottle only mentions magnesium and sodium on its nutritional label. That’s two. Where are all the other 68+ minerals? I couldn’t find any more details on their website or even Amazon page. They keep going on and on about their 70+ minerals, but their names are nowhere to be found. Why is that? Secondly, the primary things that give your body energy are carbohydrates, ketones (in the absence of carbs) and stimulants like caffeine. Minerals don’t give you energy. They don’t make you more alert. The minerals in our diet help with metabolic functions. They aren’t meant to give you energy.

Long term benefits

Detoxification
I’ve spoken about detoxing before and know that most products in the market that claim to detoxify the body do no such thing. On the Evocus website, they say this improves your digestion and gut health. How? And how does any of that detoxify your body? I couldn’t find any research to address this claim either, so there is no evidence to support this claim.
Boosts Immunity
Many articles say alkaline water boosts immunity, but none of them has provided any evidence for it. I’ve written about boosting immunity and found that no one thing can be done to improve your body’s immunity. Since the immune system comprises so many components, proteins and enzymes, its health is also dependent on good health, nutrition, sleep, stress management and overall physical health. Until now, alkaline water might only help with acidity, so I don’t see how it’ll help with the immune system. Again, no evidence for this claim.
Boosts Metabolism
They say Evocus reduces acidity and therefore boosts the metabolism leading to more burning of fat. How on earth did they make that leap? By that logic, I should be able to chug down antacids and get ripped. Hold my black water and hand me the Pepto with a Digene chaser. Check out my minty fresh flex!
Heightened Alertness
Again with the alertness! They’ve made the same claim as their “replenishes your energy” thing, so I’m not going to repeat myself.
Enhances Endurance
So apparently alkaline water’s superior hydration improves endurance. Again, I’ve cleared this up at an earlier point so I’ll move on.

I found a few more claims that go beyond those claimed by Evocus from an article on food.NDTV.com. Let’s fact-check them.

Your immune system may neutralise the acidity in your body.

Your immune system does no such thing. It’s not meant to! As I said earlier, your lungs and kidneys are in charge of maintaining the pH balance in your body. Your immune system protects the body against infections. That’s like saying your nose can also digest your food! Yeeesh!

Alkaline water has various minerals that are good for your bones.

Okay, depending on the brand and method of making alkaline water, it could have some minerals. Still, it may change from one manufacturer or recipe to another.

Alkaline water has antioxidants.

Alkaline water could have antioxidants if they are added to it. It’s not a natural property of alkaline water. This too depends on the manufacturer or recipe.

Bonus: Alkaline water can be made with citrus fruits

This one has always confused me, so I looked it up. It turns out that this can be true in a sense. Potential Renal Acid Load is a measure of how much acid or base your kidneys have to process in the context of food you consume. Once digested, lemon juice and other citrus fruits create alkaline byproducts, which lead to lower acid load on your kidneys and lower pH urine. But this DOES NOT change the pH of your blood for any meaningful period of time. It’s a fluctuation your kidneys level out very quickly. The same thing can be said for apple cider vinegar, which many alkaline water recipes include.

Fulvic & Humic Acids

Press releases by Evocus have also claimed that this company uses the methods first discovered by Dr Norbert Chirase. This guy claimed that fulvic acids (yup. ACIDS) lead to the benefits of alkaline water.

Fulvic acids are naturally found in humus (topsoil), sewage and marine sediments as a byproduct of the decomposition of organic things like food and plants. I know what you’re thinking. It’s pretty gross. Ayurveda uses Shilajit, which contains a lot of fulvic acids and is also called mineral pitch. Shilajit is found naturally in some mountain ranges around the world, including the Himalayas.

In one review, there seems to be some promise, but the results are still very preliminary. Most of the studies are either very small or performed on animals or in the lab. We still don’t know for sure how it’ll work in humans and what the doses might be. The benefits may include reducing inflammation, protecting brain function, lowering cholesterol and improving gut health. We’ll have to keep an eye on that though.

So what does this all mean?

Alkaline water is one of the fastest-growing consumable products on the market right now. According to FiGlobal Insights:

“Between 2013 and 2018, the volume of alkaline water sales rose from 357 million litres to 635 million litres globally, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.2%, according to market research company Zenith Global. It predicts sales will continue to rise, outpacing the overall premium water market, to reach a value of US$4.32 billion by the end of 2023.”

So people evidently love the stuff and are essentially lapping up every last drop of the claims thrown around by brands like Evocus. To add to this, Evocus has a lot of star power with celebrities endorsing the brand all over the place.

I don’t mean to target Evocus, though. It’s just the most visible brand in the market right now. But there are tons more like Evamor, Essentia, Icelandic and Qure, just to name a few. They are everywhere! On top of that, water purifier brands like Kent and Havells have got in on the action too.

But, as we have fact-checked every one of their primary claims, we can see pretty clearly that none of these holds water except for acidity. You can treat acidity with alkaline water. That’s basic chemistry. But you get more effective and cheaper options at your local chemist, so why even go there?

Just go for regular water from your home filter, tap (if your country does that sort of thing). If you’re in India, this doesn’t apply to you. You can even go for normal bottled water. Don’t fall for this obvious scam.

This isn’t the end. I still have a lot more to say about alkaline water and diets and how they are claimed to protect you from diseases. But that’s for another day.

Have you tried alkaline water? Do you think it helped you in any way? Tell me your stories of alkalinity in the comments below.

Until next time, stay rationable.

References and Further Reading

What are the benefits of Black Alkaline Water?

Fact-checking the benefits of alkaline water

Immediate Benefits

Reduces Acidity

Superior hydration!

Replenishes your energy

Long term benefits

Detoxification

Boosts Immunity

Boosts Metabolism

Heightened Alertness

Enhances Endurance