So what really is Kangen Water? It’s a machine that “produce[s] ionized alkaline and acidic waters through electrolysis” (from their official website).
The idea seems to be drink the alkaline water. There are “experts” out there that suggest there’s some kind of health benefit to drinking alkaline water. In fact, that’s what the doctors in the video above were going towards.
I noticed they often tout famous technologist/futurist Ray Kurzweil. I love Ray Kurzweil. I have written papers about his work as a computer science student. I read his book that advocates alkaline water Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and have even exchanged emails with him about it. One thing that I focused on is that doing the things in the book are expensive. Not everyone can take the reported 250 supplements he does every day. What I should have asked him is what kind of damage is it doing to the liver/kidneys to digest all those supplements?
Most importantly, he openly admits that he’s not a doctor and that’s not his field of expertise. It strikes me that this is a little like trusting Michael Jordan’s opinion on coding your iPhone application. Just because he’s famous and talented in one area, doesn’t necessarily mean it translates to another unrelated area.
More importantly there are a number of reputable sources explaining why alkaline water shouldn’t be on anyone’s health radar. One of the most famous is the very detailed anlaysis on chem1, by retired university-level chemistry teacher Stephen Lower. He gives his analysis because “Chemistry is my favorite subject, and I hate to see it misused to confuse, mislead or defraud the public” as stated on his website.
I actually received a Word document from a Kangen representative attempting to be rebut Lower’s analysis, but it was comical in how bad the arguments were. They focused on the fact that there are some spelling errors and the page’s web design is “GeoCities” in nature. Then it went on to list the numerous great accomplishments and awards of Kurzweil.
It summed up with, “Who would you believe?” Since you asked, if we are going to debate the topic of chemistry, I’ll take the chemistry teacher, Lower, on my side. If you want to have a discussion about artificial intelligence, I’ll take Kurzweil. In today’s discussion, chemistry and Lower win. People trying to mislead others with Kurzweil’s irrelevant to the topic’s accomplishments lose.
And then there are a couple of articles on alkaline water in Quackwatch. It’s also covered well in the Skeptic’s Dictionary. However, I’ve often seen many people refer to Brian Dunning’s Skeptoid article as one of the best ones. Here’s how it starts:
“Today we’re going to take a scientific look at one of the latest multilevel marketing fads: healing water machines, devices costing thousands of dollars claiming to ionize or alkalize your tap water, and claiming a dazzling range of health and medical benefits. Sold under such names as Kangen, Jupiter Science, KYK, and literally hundreds of others, these machines do either nothing or almost nothing (beyond basic water filtration), and none of what they may actually do has any plausible beneficial purpose. They are built around the central notion that regular water is so harmful to the body that their price tags, as much as $6,000, are actually justified. They are essentially water filters with some additional electronics to perform electrolysis. They are sold with volumes of technical sounding babble that may impress a non-scientific layperson, but to any chemist or medical doctor, they are laughably meaningless (and in many cases, outright wrong).”
The article goes into great detail explaining further why it’s a scam. What’s amazing is that he published the article 5 years ago and there are still people out there that buy the product.
I could probably find a few dozen more reputable sources, but at this point I think you get the picture. The independent scientists have weighed in and it appears that this water is quackery. Funny how Enagic’s paid scientists didn’t seem to come to this conclusion. Though they got lost focusing on generalities such as nutrition and not the specifics of Kangen Water.
Kangen Water Also Looks Like a Pyramid Scheme
Whenever I analyze MLMs and pyramid schemes, my “go to” source is the FTC. They are an unbiased source… and exist to help protect consumers… and we are all consumers, right? I can give you my thoughts/feelings on pyramid schemes, but I think we can agree that the FTC’s words carry significantly more weight, right?
So here is what the FTC says about MLMs and pyramid schemes:
“Not all multilevel marketing plans are legitimate. If the money you make is based on your sales to the public, it may be a legitimate multilevel marketing plan. If the money you make is based on the number of people you recruit and your sales to them, it’s not. It’s a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal, and the vast majority of participants lose money… Avoid any plan where the reward for recruiting new distributors is more than it is for selling products to the public. That’s a time-tested and traditional tip-off to a pyramid scheme.”
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