Today’s MLM question is about Enagic’s Kangen Water. I first got an email about this back in late December of 2011. Due to the Christmas holiday, I missed the email. Since then I’ve steadily gotten questions about it every 6 months or so. Each time, I got a question, I thought I should write an article, but something came up and it got shuffled down the priority list. Recently, I got a pair of emails about it. Since people trust my analysis of MLMs, it makes sense to write about Enagic’s Kangen Water simply so that I don’t have to address emails individually. I can say, “Read the article. Leave a comment.”
My first stop to learning about Kangen Water was YouTube. Specifically I found this video:
The video starts off by giving credit to United States if you need treatment calling it “the gold standard.” It then goes on to say that we (United States citizens) are overfed and undernourished. While we may be overfed, we are actually more nourished than previous generations to the point that malnourishment maladies are virtually unheard of.
The video continues on to emphasize our overweight lifestyles. This is actually going to undermine their whole argument as Kangen Water does not help you lose weight. Thus the “fix” isn’t a new water, it’s the age-old diet and exercise.
The video then says that we pay more for prescription drugs than other countries. We do, but that’s due to politics. We subsidize the other countries cheaper drugs and their governments negotiate better rates while ours does not. It’s not that we need to take more medication because our health is poor… it’s that the price of each medicine is much, much more expensive due to politics.
According to the video, people in Japan weigh less than we do and live longer. Hey perhaps that’s a useful correlation! Sadly, no the video implies it is all due to the fact people in Japan drink Kangen Water. Again, drinking a specific type of water isn’t going to help you lose weight, so the conclusion makes no sense. It’s like saying that the US spending on science, space, and technology causes Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation. Hey the graphs match up, so it must be true! (Hopefully the sarcasm came through there.)
The video then goes on with a few doctors (who are disclosed as working with Enagic) talk about things unrelated to Kangen Water such as nutrition. They talk about antioxidants hoping to capitalize on the media frenzy that they are good, when research continually shows that they don’t work and may even be bad for you.
Quite honestly, the promotional video got to be too much for me. It didn’t seem to have anyone who didn’t work for the company. These are not the people you want to listen to especially when they dance around the topic and pretend that a special type of water is more nutritious than any other. Yes water is a nutrient, but water is water as far nutrient quality goes.
The “Secret” of Kangen Water
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.
Alkaline Water Criticism in the Media
Alkaline water has been roundly criticized in the media. Here are just a few of the examples and some quotes:
- McGill University
Title: Alkaline Water Nonsense
Subtitle: The words absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous, preposterous, comical, and farcical come to mind, but they still don’t quite seem to capture the extent of the mind-numbing nonsense. And what nonsense is that? ‘Ionized Alkaline Water!'” - New York Times
Expert: “It’s all about marketing. There is no science to back it up.”
Other analysis: This article notes that companies funded several small studies seemingly for the purpose of marketing. - Science Based Medicine
Subtitle: “Alkaline water is pure BS – there is no plausibility to the claims of any health benefits, and what evidence we have is negative. Its popularity grows despite this.” - The Guardian
Key Quote: “While people have been touting the benefits of upping your alkaline levels for decades, Fenton says the belief is not supported by any scientific evidence. Fenton, who analyzed studies looking at the association of alkaline water with cancer treatment, notes that while ‘there are a few very poorly designed studies’ that suggest alkaline water confers health benefits, there is no rigorous evidence this is the case.’What’s more, Fenton stresses, you simply can’t change the pH of your body by drinking alkaline water. ‘Your body regulates its [blood] pH in a very narrow range because all our enzymes are designed to work at pH 7.4. If our pH varied too much we wouldn’t survive.'”
- Vice
Subtitle: “No, Alkaline Water Isn’t Making You Healthier – It is making your wallet lighter, though.” - Self
Title: “What Even Is Alkaline Water and Is It Really Better Than Regular Water?”This article included several experts that debunked alkaline in decent detail.
- Truth in Advertising
Truth in Advertising covers the class action lawsuits against the makers of alkaline water companies, citing an expert that says “It’s all about marketing. There is no science to back it up.”
This is just a sample of what I found in a couple of minutes of research. I’m sure there are many more examples. In my opinion it couldn’t be clearer that the experts have concluded that alkaline water is just marketing bunk.
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.”
The take-away here for me is simple: “selling to public = good. recruiting salespeople = bad.” So when I see this video on their official website…
… I simply have to shake my head. They are clearly marketing a plan that demonstrates the money one person makes when they recruit a bunch of people who also recruit a bunch of people. It doesn’t look like it is about selling the product to the public at all.
More disturbingly, it depicts the results of one person having a team/pyramid of 32 people. Whenever I think about whether something is a pyramid scheme, I ask myself a few questions, “Does it make sense that everyone on Earth is able to recruit 32 people? If this company has 100,000 people in it today, will it have 3.2 million people next year (everyone able to recruit 32 people) and will it have 100 million the year after that (3.2 million people recruiting 32 people)?”
Herbalife is considered to be one of the largest MLMs and it is around 2 million people in nearly 100 countries. (And the FTC is investigating it as a pyramid scheme). Herbalife has been around for 30 years and it hasn’t gotten close to 100 million people.
Kangen Water has already been around for a number of years and it isn’t hasn’t gotten there either. The example that they are pitching simply isn’t a realistic depiction of what one could expect. It would be like a lottery putting up a video depicting how easy it is to win. At its core it is deceptive, because it is depicting an extremely rare and unlikely circumstance as being likely enough to be used as a typical example.
I could continue this article for thousands of more words, and perhaps will continue to update it over time. For example, I should add a section on the hexagonal water scam claims that are associated with Kangen Water. For now, I’ll let it stand as is because this scam already been well-covered by many of the links I referred to above.
Article published: July 25, 2014
LazyMan, you said, “If hundreds of studies existed from all of the world with repeated positive results, they would not be dismissed. The problem is that it simply isn’t true and that hasn’t happened.”
I respect your request and don’t want to crash it with too many studies…. but since you insist “it simply isn’t true”:
A quick search request revealed at least 60 studies:
I’ll just post the first of 7 pages to not overwhelm your site:
[Editor’s Note: Yes, that overwhelms the website. Please don’t post “search results” on this website. Instead, please show ONLY systematic reviews that have repeated the exact study with the same repeated results. I don’t want 15 studies on hydration. In fact, please don’t include hydration at all because people are mostly overhydrated and tremendous hydration solutions are only a penny or two.
Again, any fire hose of study searches will be deleted, because it doesn’t show you’ve analyzed them for repeated positive results. Please remember this is space is not about scammy alkaline water, but also pyramid sales tactics.]
Seriously. Why dont you try it, and write your own review from the results. I’ve consumed this for 5 years. Its absolutely amazing.
Totally turned around my anxiety and my depression issues. That alone is a miracle.
I don’t get colds, flu’s or allergies at all anymore. Miracle.
On top of this, my skin looks 20 years younger, and I have energy every single day. Triple miracle.
Totally worth the investment.
And no, I don’t sell the machines. I’m a teacher.
Everyone always seems to get this wrong and I’ve been writing this for around 12 years now. Can we please not do this any more?
There’s a thing called the placebo effect that you should research. How can you be a teacher and not learned about 8th grade science?
Mel said: “Totally turned around my anxiety and my depression issues. That alone is a miracle. I don’t get colds, flu’s or allergies at all anymore. Miracle. On top of this, my skin looks 20 years younger, and I have energy every single day. Triple miracle.”
[Eye roll…] All that was missing was the part about how it made you invisible and gave you the ability to levitate at will. Bleached water can’t possibly do any of the things you described. It’s mind-boggling that anyone could make such far-fetched claims with no evidence and expect to be believed.
Lazy Man said: “There’s a thing called the placebo effect that you should research.”
You’re being a nice host and giving the benefit of the doubt by applying Hanlon’s razor (“never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”) but I’m more inclined towards Occam’s razor in this case (“the simplest solution is most likely the right one”) – i.e., it’s not simply a dimwit rube mistakenly attributing an effect to Kangen’s idiot water, but rather a maladroit liar.
Results speak for themselves. And if your gigantic obsessive case against this product was valid, you would not have to lower yourself by insulting anybody who has good things to say. I’ve never reviewed anything before, and in trying to help people by talking about my experience, I get insulted and criticised, won’t bother again. Also, I was not reviewing this product, simply telling you about my personal results from actually using one for 5 years. Have you been drinking this water for 5 years ??? no.
YES the machines are sold via a pyramid scheme, but that’s no secret……….. so what? It is not illegal. . My results are not claims. I am a teacher, and no I don’t know science, I teach art. Does this not make me intelligent enough to deserve contributing my point of view………… But more importantly I try something myself, before reading 500 reviews and I make up my own mind. Again, my machine cost 1800, not 5k.
Mel,
I haven’t insulted anyone (that I know of).
I’m pretty sure that pyramid schemes are illegal, but you’ll have to take that up with your own jurisdiction. There are definitely a number of court cases pending about MLM/pyramid schemes.
Peoples’ personal results in anonymous reviews don’t matter, because of that placebo effect we’ve talked about. I don’t believe any medical review journal has verified your review to say that it is accurate. If it is indeed accurate, the people at the Kangen company should be running to put your story on the front of every newspaper and magazine.
Vogel, the reason why I have been patient with this commenter is because she emailed me personally while leaving the comment. That courtesy is appreciated, even if the comment’s content doesn’t make any sense.
[Editor’s Note: This comment is wrong on so many levels that I don’t have time to get into it now. I bet regular commenter, Vogel has something he can quickly prepare. If he doesn’t in a few days, I’ll be back with some resources in a follow up comment. As a short term measure, ORAC scores (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) having health advantages have widely been debunked for around a decade now.]
What’s the benefit of negative Hydroxide ions (OH-) or low Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) kangen water, to the human body?_
First of all, it’s about understanding the harmful effects of free radicals and oxidative stress. Free radicals can be defined as any molecular species capable of independent existence that contains an unpaired electron in an atomic orbital. Free radicals attack important macromolecules leading to cell damage and homeostatic disruption. In order to survive on its own, free radicals target all kinds of molecules in the body. Among them, lipids, nucleic acids (DNA), and proteins. So in order to neutralize these harmful attacks of free radicals inside the body, we need antioxidants. _
Antioxidants are in the form of vitamins, minerals (normally from vegetables and fruits, but the soil is nutrient deficient nowadays due to insecticides, pesticides.), and alkalized ionized water. These antioxidants can donate the electrons that was lost by the free radical, thus neutralizing the said free radical molecule. Once free radical molecules are neutralized then they become harmless. So an ideal healthy body state is a balance of free radical progression and antioxidant defenses. Once free radicals overwhelm the body (said body has less antioxidants that can combat them), then oxidative stress occurs. Oxidative stress is the root cause of most diseases. _
Therefore, this Japanese anti-oxidizing medical-grade machine, that can produce alkalized, ionized water with lots of antioxidant hydroxide ions (OH-), and has low Oxidative Reduction Potential (ORP) is highly beneficial to provide the electrons to neutralize harmful invasion of free radical molecules. _
So supplying antioxidants inside the body tackles the root causes of human diseases (not just suppressing or addressing symptoms like pharmaceutical drugs do with corresponding dangerous side effects), and is an excellent preventative health measure.
A WARNING SHOT AT ENAGIC DISTRIBUTORS WHO TRY TO TROLL THIS BLOG
Witnessing Ben’s trolling over the past few days has been like watching a child who gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar and then invents an elaborate lie in their defense that they’re sure no one would be able to see through; meanwhile, the adults in the room just shake their heads and laugh at the child’s feeble attempts at prevarication. At least this would be laughable were it not for the fact that Ben is a lying predator troll who would stop at nothing, including preying on sick people, to sell one of his moronic magic water machines and rope another hapless soul into joining the company’s pyramid scheme.
Ben insists that he’s not an Enagic distributor, but that claim is completely unbelievable. His debut on this site a mere 5 days ago consisted of a threadbare lecture about microclustering, followed by repeated attempts to tell us that we are wrong for being critical of Enagic’s scam, while quoting one of Enagic’s paid spokespeople in his defense. He then proceeded to cut and paste a dozen or so random research articles, as though it were evidence of some benefit of Enagic’s water, and when I went through the effort to expose one of those research papers as a complete and utter scam,[https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563474] Ben deflected, suddenly switching gears and donning the alter ego of a “concerned parent” of a child with atopic dermatitis (eczema). And that was when his cover story really fell to pieces.
Ben (April 11 11:41 PM) said: “I am not a distributor of Enagic Kangen water machine. But I am interested in the technology. I have a daughter who suffered from eczema (atopic dermatitis) for years, and her allergist doctor couldn’t help her with all the prescription creams. Her doctor referred her for “experimental” drugs for eczema. I am not about to let my daughter be a “guinea pig”. A friend told me about Kangen water and I did some research. There are numerous anecdotal testimonials regarding Kangen water alleviating atopic dermatitis. There is also a Japanese news report that reported about the effects of electrolyzed alkaline water and topical acidic water on atopic dermatitis. The doctor who treated 2000 patients reported up to 90% cure rate…So I did order a machine and it should be arriving next week. And I look forward to using it. If it can help my daughter, then it is worth every penny.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDWyRTchIc
Ben (April 12 6:19 PM) said: “LazyMan, the reason I came to your site is that I was considering getting a Kangen machine for my daughter. I wanted to see if there are information contrary to what I’ve been researching. I must admit, the videos of Japanese hospitals treating patients with electrolyzed alkaline water appear very convincing—particularly in patients with atopic dermatitis. Certainly the multiple different studies of electrolyzed reduced water and atopic dermatitis made me even more convinced.”
There were so many logical inconsistencies here, it’s hard to decide where to begin dismantling them. First, it’s obvious that “Ben” is in fact an Enagic distributor or has some other financial interest at stake. He wouldn’t have come here and made a 5-day full-court press to defend a product that he hasn’t even tried yet, and has no stake in, and he wouldn’t be spewing Enagic promo BS at us, which he seems to have committed to memory, were he not tied up with it financially. We see the telltale signs of a distributor (or paid promoter/troll) reading from their play book, right down to the claim that he was introduced to the product by some anonymous “friend” and subsequently did “some research” that convinced him everything was on the up and up.
Ben cites “numerous anecdotal testimonials regarding Kangen water alleviating atopic dermatitis”, pretending blithely that anecdotal testimonials from a snakeoil pyramid scheme MLM aren’t deceptive and utterly worthless (every sketchy MLM in history has tried to use them to fleece the public). But the coup de grace was when Ben claimed that the poorly produced grainy video (undated and unsourced) in Japanese (with an Enagic dealer doing the voiceover translation) was what ultimately convinced him to order an Enagic machine. This is farcical on its surface. Ben claims that he didn’t want his daughter to be a “guinea pig” by using experimental medical treatments prescribed by his daughter’s physician, but he apparently had no qualms about using her as a guinea pig with Enagic’s voodoo water, based solely on anonymous anecdotal testimonials and that laughably worthless video from Japan. None of that adds up. The icing on the cake is that the blatantly deceptive and utterly worthless Japanese video on YouTube was posted by Enagic distributor Carl Carvalho, a massage therapist in Paramus, NJ.
http://www.healthsuccesscenter.com/about/
Ben also claimed “the reason I came to your site is that I was considering getting a Kangen machine for my daughter. I wanted to see if there are information contrary to what I’ve been researching.”
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563693
He first came to the site on April 8 and by April 12 he claimed “my Kangen machine will be coming next week”.
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563693
In Ben’s childlike mind, this story seems perfectly reasonable but everyone else can instantly recognize it as a very poorly thought out lie. Ben didn’t come here looking for “contrary information”; he came to bury and discount contrary information. He obviously wasn’t deliberating whether or not to order an Enagic machine; and it’s a safe assumption that he didn’t order one subsequent to the 4 days of re-education and bashing he had to endure here. The entire story is moronic and transparent, but Ben is too dumb to invent a believable cover story with which to swindle people. Moving on…
Ben then goes on to tout 2 studies, implying that somehow they confirm the efficacy of Enagic’s water for treating atopic dermatitis:
Ben (April 12 12:42 AM) said: “LOL…I haven’t made any health claim. My daughter and I haven’t even try the water yet. But here are the studies I found (one from Saudi Arabia and another form S. Korea)”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5654027/
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2013/538673/
Ignoring for the moment that these 2 papers were penned by obscure research groups in Japan and S. Korea, and published in shit dumping-ground foreign journals (Saudi Medical Journal and Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine), and that neither of the studies used Enagic’s machine, the most important detail is that both studies were experimental and conducted in mutant MICE. So, while Ben claims he doesn’t want to use his (alleged) daughter as a “guinea pig”, he apparently has no problems treating her like a mutant mouse. The scenario is so f-ing dumb and far-fetched it makes one’s head explode.
No one would be so stupid as to buy an Enagic machine based on such flimsy and/or fraudulent evidence. But Ben wants people to believe that this scenario is real because he wants them to emulate his fictitious troll persona’s story and shell out for an Enagic machine while ignoring all the overwhelming evidence as to why they should not.
Next, Ben and Greg Wegert (another Enagic distributor) engage in some tag-team trolling:
Ben (April 12 11:02 PM) said: “Thanks, Greg. I’m really looking forward to using the Kangen water clear up my daughter’s eczema. I just found another study that reconfirmed its effects to alleviate atopic dermatitis:”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5654027/
Wow, yet another study that “reconfirmed” it’s magical ability to “alleviate atopic dermatitis”? Except the study he posted here is the same one he posted a day earlier (the Saudi Med J. study in mutant mice), and it was incapable of confirming anything about the treatment of atopic dermatitis because it was performed in mutant MICE!!!
In addition to Ben’s fraudulent and self-serving claims about Enagic’s BS water alleviating atopic dermatitis, he makes this moronic claim suggesting that it can also treat diabetes:
Many US pharmaceutical companies would be reluctant to sponsor a study that would help alleviate diabetes by drinking specialized water…They would go out of business! But there are studies available that tested hundreds of patients and found electrolyzed alkaline water to significantly reduce their blood sugar
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563384
Again, this is so painfully stupid it makes one’s head explode. If magic water could cure anything, you can be damn sure that some US Pharma company, with their multi-billion dollar resources, would commercialize it in a heartbeat and reap the rewards. But again, in Ben’s feeble childlike mind, his paranoid conspiracy theory makes perfect sense, or at least he wants others to believe that it does, so that he can steal their money.
When Ben wasn’t insulting our intelligence with all this outlandish shit, he was drowning the blog with cut and pasted citations from Pub Med. Research that is in equal parts fraudulent, irrelevant, and completely beyond Ben’s ability to grasp at even the most basic level, as he has amply demonstrated here time and time again.
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563111
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563127
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-1563341
https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/kangen-water-scam/comment-page-2/#comment-1563786
There you have it. That’s the story of “Ben” – a typical lying idiot desperado Enagic troll with a cracked moral compass and the intellect of a 5-year old.
And because of his imposition, duplicity, insult to our intelligence, and wasting of our time, I’m going to make a point of scouring the internet for examples of the illegal claims that Enagic distributors are making that suggest their BS water can treat, cure, or prevent any disease, and then file multiple reports with the FDA in the hope that they will drop the axe on the company and mete out the punishment that they all so richly deserve.
https://www.fda.gov/safety/reportaproblem/ucm059315.htm
Among those I’ll be looking into are Greg Wengert and his girlfriend Jeanine Chouinard (also an Enagic distributor in Edson, Alberta), and Cathleen Lograsso (a distributor in Femton, MO,) who has been illegally promoting Enagic’s water as a treatment for atopic dermatitis. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that one of them is actually “Ben” the troll.
http://seventypercentlove.kangendemo.com/
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/content/uploads/2014/04/Curing-Atopic-Dermatitis-with-Ionized-Water-Transcript.pdf
After drinking this water for 5 years, yes, I know that it gets rid of dermatitis. My family drink it, my cousin had dermatitis all her life, and it cleared within – 6-7 months of drinking it.
Water can not be patented, so no pharmaceutical company with billion dollar resources would touch it.
One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, owns many vitamin brands including Centrum. Vitamins, like water, also can not be patented.
This false logic is spread everywhere by MLM companies and their advertisers, hoping to influence people through misinformation.
You are an expert in stating hañf truths. Water per se can not be patented, no one in ented it. But the technology or the water bottle cobtaining water can be. https://www.globalpatentsolutions.com/blog/if-you-cant-patent-water-cant-you-least-patent-bottle/
I never suggested that water could be patented. I said that billion dollar pharmaceutical companies “do touch” (your words) things that can’t be patented like vitamins. Thus you can’t say that billion dollar pharmaceuticals wouldn’t touch things that can’t be patented. That was your argument. My 7-year old could point out the logic flaw in your argument given that very basic, verifiable information.
Sorry for typos. You are such an expert on half truths! To state it clearly, water Per se can never be patented, it is a natural resource, no one invented it but God. Now water bottles can be patented. Thus, no smart pharmaceutical company will touch it since they can never profit from water per se As it is not patentable. https://www.globalpatentsolutions.com/blog/if-you-cant-patent-water-cant-you-least-patent-bottle/
Vitamins are a natural resource. They aren’t invented either. Pharmaceutical companies touch vitamins, so what makes water different?
So IF water per se can be patented as you are trying to imply with your false logic thingy, give me one billion dollor pharma that has the water patent?
LOL, no one ever said that water can be patented. I simply pointed out that Pfizer owns Centrum vitamins and vitamins can’t be patented. Ergo, they obviously do not need something able to be patented to invest in it.
Mr. Half truth aka lazy guy,
I didn’t see my latest post asking you to prove your ‘false logic thingy’ that water per se can be patented. Sooo provide me with that billion dollor pharma that actually own the patent for water per se? Thanks, in advance
Tina the truth seeker
You asked similar questions in 4 comment responses in a span of less than 15 minutes. Maybe wait for the answer, so that I don’t have to make fun of your lack of logic 4 times?
One last time… Pharmaceutical companies own things that can not be patented (Pfizer owns Centrum vitamins). Thus you can’t logically argue that they wouldn’t touch things that can’t be patented. They already do! It’s already been proven false.
Mr. Half truth aka lazy guy,
Individual vitamins like Vitamin C, Vitamin B, magnesium as individual Vitamin Or minerals can not be patented per se just like water per se, BUT a combination of different vitamins and minerals as aggregate or the term multivitamins as a natural supplement can be._
At least you admitted water per se can not be patented, so big pharma wouldn’t touch the thing.
Which makes my first comment valid and true.
As for Enagic being a marketing scam, why would countries like Canada, Australia, USA, Philippines (the said countries have very strict laws against pyramid schemes) , etc., allow them to operate if they are using a pyramid scheme? No, they are as legitimate in the eyes of the Inernal Revenue Agencies of all these countries.
Tina the Truth seeker
While it may be possible for certain combinations of multivitamins to be patented, it doesn’t look like Centrum is patented. For example, you can see WalMart has their Equate brand that says, “Compare to Centrum.” Here’s the link: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equate-Complete-Multivitamin-Tablets-Adults-50-220-Count/10324623.
Thus we have an example of a billion dollar pharmaceutical company holding a big brand of product that it didn’t patent. It’s the literal equivalent of Coke owning the brand Dasani in your water example. Except in this case, we have pharma corp. owning the product without a patent and marketing simply off it’s brand.
When you say, “At least you admitted water can not patented” it’s another misleading argument. I never suggested it couldn’t be. Your statement was false because you said that pharma companies wouldn’t touch it. That was the point you tried to make. It wasn’t that water can’t be patented. We never had a disagreement on that.
Lots of MLM companies are valid companies in the IRS’ eyes. AdvoCare is an MLM that was allowed to run in multiple companies that have strict laws against pyramid schemes. Guess what? The FTC after a couple of decades finally enforced the law and determined they are a pyramid scheme. By the way, I said AdvoCare looked like a pyramid scheme a few years before. So if you listened to me, you would have gotten out without being harmed. My opinions may be worth listening to on these things. And make sure you’ve done the research on the MLM industry before you presume that they are legal. There have been probably a couple dozen against them over the last years for them being pyramid schemes, and many have been shut down.
Here are some HUMAN BEFORE and AFTER PROOF of patients taking electrolyzed hydrogen-rich water for Atopic Dematitis!
https://www.facebook.com/vwa.com.my/photos/a.628989340449383/2321237317891235/?type=3&theater
Vogel, LOL!! I needed that laugh!
I hope detective work is not what you do for a living…. because the only thing you got right is that I accidentally reposted one of the 3 studies on Atopic Dematitis that I found
I am going to comment on Lazy man’s statement in Big Pharma would be all over this with their resources. Point blank, Big Pharma and the medical establishment are not interested in super healthy people because if the vast majority of the population was super healthy, then Big Pharma would go out of business bc super healthy people don’t need any drugs to stay healthy.
[Editor’s Response: This is a popular, but obviously false conspiracy theory. There are thousands of competing pharmaceutical companies and if one found a “Fountain of Youth” or similarly magic medicine, they’d cash in and become the richest company in the world. Sadly there’s no way to make everyone healthy forever, because that’s the circle of life. No one believes that an average 120 year old is going to be as fit as an average 20 year old with some medicine or nutrition. Medicine is simply not in danger of going out of business.]
Big pharma will not tell you this but from personal experience, drugs just temporarily help the situation and then it has many side effects, many of them serious.
[Editor’s Response: Your personal experience may be different from everyone else’s. However, medicine has it’s limits which can include side effects. If you break a bone and get put in a cast, a “side effect”, might be limited mobility due to the cast.]
As a person who has suffered from a stroke, 3 years ago, i find that taking drugs over the ling term ( more than 6 months) actually causes more harm than good.
[Editor’s Response: Again, your experience may not be typical. Please keep in mind that scientists do studies on many, many people. They have the data from many personal experiences and it collectively confirms that they do more benefit than harm.]
As a matter of fact, i find supplements and eating a nutritionally balanced food,are more effective in healing than drugs.
[Editor’s Response: You would likely be in the placebo group with that. Nutrition may be preventative, but I haven’t seen anything about it healing a medical condition (unless it’s scurvy that is a lack of nutrition (vitamin C)). Scientists have put together many studies concluding that supplements are a waste of money. Read that link in detail. They are very strong about their findings.]
Btw, i eat mostly organic non processed food.
I may not be able to speak on behalf of others but my personal experiences when it comes to the medical profession and Pharmaceutical drugs, is that in most cases, they are abysmal in diagnosing or curing the root cause of disease.
[Editor’s Response: Once again, the personal experience of an anonymous person, who is likely a distributor, who isn’t presenting any medical doctor’s analysis counts for nothing.]
Nature has the cure and i can speak on that first hand.
[Editor’s Response: Yes, in the history of nature, there has been no one who is immortal. Nature’s cure for overcrowding the Earth is death. Some call it the cricle of life.]
For instance, i used to have recurring nose bleeds, especially during the winter months and what i used to do was go to the doctor and coterize the septum area. Until 2015, i coterized my nose and it only helped temporarily. Starting in 2016 until now, i have been taking high dosage vitamin c and i haven’t had a nosebleed since!
[Editor’s Response: Vitamin C hasn’t been shown to cure nosebleeds. It could be coincidence related to any other change you maybe haven’t even noticed. It could be random happenstance.]
The bottom line is Big Pharma has never been interested in a cure for any disease. The FTC as well is not really protecting consumers from the fraudulent practices of Big Pharma. Many times they rig the results of their drugs just so it can be considered “safe.”
[Editor’s Response: Hmmm, Big Pharma has effectively cured measles, polio, TB and more. The FDA does not have medicine to rig the results of. The FTC doesn’t come into play with the approval of medicine. I still say that the FDA can certainly do better in many cases. It’s better to have them than nothing at all. It’s like saying a town without a fire department is better than one with a fire department because one time a house burned down. Imagine if all the houses burned down. That’s what you’d have without the FDA.]
That is why, i do not trust much on what FTC or FDA states.
I am 47 years old now and based on my personal experience, never, ever trust what anyone says about anything, until you experience it yourself.
If it works great and if it doesn’t work, don’t make that same mistake again.
[Editor’s Response: The placebo effect makes experiencing medical symptoms the exception to “experience it yourself” rule. It’s like an optical illusion where you experience it yourself, but your mind is tricked.]
LazyMan, I missed your previous comment, “Let’s pretend you are the guys in the Essentia water (or whatever it was). The company is paying you money and giving you stock. They’ll only continue to do so if you produce positive results for their money.”
There are literally hundreds of expert researchers out there researching on Electrolyzed Reduced Water (ERW) and designing hundreds of studies on human and animals. Are all them “bought and paid for”? I don’t think so.
Again, i will respect your request not to overwhelm your website again by listing the hundreds of ERW studies that are available for public review.
Here’s an alkaline reduced water report that “was supported by the National Research of
Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government”
https://www.fda.gov.tw/upload/189/Content/2014012910285936813.pdf
Clinical Effect and Mechanism of Alkaline Reduced Water
see: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“This report was supported by the National Research of
Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government”
Ben said: “Here’s an alkaline reduced water report that ‘was supported by the National Research of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government’. Clinical Effect and Mechanism of Alkaline Reduced Water — see: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: ‘This report was supported by the National Research of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government’.”
https://www.fda.gov.tw/upload/189/Content/2014012910285936813.pdf
You didn’t say what it was that we were supposed to presume about the funding but the clear implication you’re making is that the granting source confers some kind of legitimacy to the study, or that it attests to the Korean government’s interest in the subject matter. However, we have seen this exact same deception tactic employed with other snake-oil MLMs.
It’s simply a case of a researcher using leftover funds from an existing grant to conduct research that has nothing to do with what the research topic for which the grant was initially awarded. Researchers have wide latitude as to how they use grant funds once they are awarded and they can shift the direction of their research significantly without any re-authorization from the granting agency. Shitty, shifty companies like snakeoil MLMs leverage this sort of misrepresentation because it provides a veneer of legitimacy to their product, as though it were sanctified by a government funding agency, which is exactly what we see Ben trying to do here. In every one of these cases, the researchers received some kind of inducement from the company whose product was being tested, or they had a direct financial interest in the product, and failed to disclose it.
In the US, it’s easy to expose this kind of fraud because you can look up the grant number in a database and see exactly what it was awarded for and all the projects that claimed to have used that funding source. It’s not so easy with Korean NRF grants, but a simple workaround is to look up earlier studies that cited that same grant number. In this case, the grant number was NRF2010-413-B00024. These are some of the studies that have cited that same grant number.
2011: Klotho Expression in the Uterine Endometrium During the Estrous Cycle and Pregnancy in Pigs
https://academic.oup.com/biolreprod/article/85/Suppl_1/485/2959047
2011: Expression of Interferon-gamma Receptors, IFNGR1 and IFNGR2, in the Uterine Endometrium during the Estrous Cycle and Pregnancy in Pigs
https://academic.oup.com/biolreprod/article/85/Suppl_1/487/2959049
2012: Analysis of the Lysophosphatidic Acid-Generating Enzyme ENPP2 in the Uterus During Pregnancy in Pigs
https://bioone.org/journals/Biology-of-Reproduction/volume-87/issue-4/biolreprod.112.099564/Analysis-of-the-Lysophosphatidic-Acid-Generating-Enzyme-ENPP2-in-the/10.1095/biolreprod.112.099564.short
The obvious conclusion here is that grant NRF2010-413-B00024 was originally awarded for studies on pregnancy in pigs, not anything to do even remotely with alkaline water. It’s especially puzzling that the authors would cite a grant number in this case since the paper Ben cited wasn’t a research paper, it was a review article, which doesn’t really require any funding at all other than for the time it took to write it. The authors simply slapped that grant number on a paper that had nothing to do with what the grant was originally awarded for, probably as either as a favor to some alkaline water company or in service of their own direct financial interests in alkaline water.
What we can conclude definitely is that the Korean government did not knowingly provide funding for this alkaline water review article, and Ben is too stupid to know the difference or thinks that everyone else is. He continues to deceive at every turn. Typical know-nothing Enagic parasite. A bottom-feeder so desperate that he doesn’t care how many people he misleads or injures as long as he has the faint glimmer of hope that he might earn a piddly commission check.
LazyMan and Vogel, note the astounding statement in the report–https://www.fda.gov.tw/upload/189/Content/2014012910285936813.pdf
“The Korean and the Japanese governments officially acknowledged the efficacy of AIW (Alkaline Ionized Water) as a novel material for the improvement of abnormal intestinal fermentation, chronic diarrhea, gastric hyperacidity and dyspepsia.”
This report is actually posted by the FDA.GOV in Taiwan! If that astounding statement is false or if they did not agree with everything in the report, the Taiwan government would not post it!
Take time to read that report….It’s very EYE OPENING!
Ben said: “Here are some HUMAN BEFORE and AFTER PROOF of patients taking electrolyzed hydrogen-rich water for Atopic Dematitis!”
So now you think random photos posted by a Malaysian seller of water ionizers on Facebook is “PROOF”? In all caps??? You’ve really fallen off the deep end now. Scraping the barrel and embarrassing yourself even more than usual. Amazing that you still persist in this futile effort after your BS back story and deceptive tactics have been laid bare.
Ben said: “The 3rd study I found that showed repeated results of decreased inflammatory mediators involved in atopic dermatitis:
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bpb/37/9/37_b14-00220/_pdf
That might be mildly relevant if your daughter were a mutant mouse with DTNB-induced dermatitis, but I’m assuming she’s not (rather, just a figment of your imagination). You do realize that one shouldn’t base their treatment decisions on mouse studies right? Then again your entire story is BS, but if you want to continue pretending and going through the motions have at it. Don’t you think you should fess up by now and admit you have a financial interest in this, because it’s obvious you do.
Ben said: “Look at MORE HUMAN BEFORE and AFTER PROOF!”
Wow, still more vague random photos from Facebook. You’re really embarrassing yourself now (even more so with the caps lock on). At least you’ve dropped the pretense of science.
Ben said: “And why would I be willing to have my daughter drink Kangen water and not let her try “experimental drugs” to treat her eczema.”
You wouldn’t. Your story is BS.
Ben said: “There are literally hundreds of expert researchers out there researching on Electrolyzed Reduced Water (ERW) and designing hundreds of studies on human and animals. Are all them “bought and paid for”? I don’t think so.”
You keep hiding behind random numbers like “hundreds of researchers” and “hundreds of studies” and yet whenever we look into them, they turn out to either be shit studies with completely unreliable or misrepresented results, have researchers with conflicts of interest, and are irrelevant or not supportive of any of the things you’re alleging. And the simple fact is that you don’t understand any of them, so to you it’s just a bewildering arcane pile of paper, which you then throw at people in a lame attempt to defend the stupid allegations that distributors are making about how Kangen can cure everything. Like this lying lawbreaking F-ing idiot (who incidentally has now been reported to the FDA for illegal marketing).
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/hydrogen-water-fights-diseases/
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/ionized-water-remedies/
Then there’s issue of being bought and paid for – like you (which you still are attempting to hide). We see the lengths you’ll go to deceive people and you’re only doing it for the potential promise of a small commission. We can just imagine how far down you’d sink to if a company was offering you a big pile of money to fudge research, or if you had a patent at stake. You’d sell that fictitious daughter of yours into slavery for half that amount.
Ben said: “This report is actually posted by the FDA.GOV in Taiwan! If that astounding statement is false or if they did not agree with everything in the report, the Taiwan government would not post it!”
You’re continuing to make a fool of yourself. Just because an article is included in some government database with no accompanying commentary does not mean that the government endorses the study. US government databases (e.g., Pub Med) include virtually every scientific study every published, and obviously there is no implied endorsement of the contents. It’s like walking into a library and saying that the local government endorses the contents of every book on the library’s shelves. In other words, you’re a duplicitous moron if you think that this means anything. On the other hand, we have the governments of the Philippines and Ghana calling your magic water out as BS, as have pretty much every reputable source in the world who has ever looked closely at the idiotic claims that self-serving miscreants like you are making.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/571225/fda-claims-about-curative-effects-of-alkaline-water-not-substantiated
https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/No-evidence-alkaline-water-prevents-cardiovascular-disease-FDA-642279#
It’s time you came clean and fessed up about your undisclosed financial connections. It’s obvious to everyone that you have skin in the game and are lying to cover it up. BTW, I’d ask you to send Lazy Man a copy of your purchase receipt for that Kangen machine you allegedly bought this week, but we know you won’t because you’re a straight up liar and a petty con artist pretending using the manufactured persona of a concerned parent and innocent bystander as camouflage.
Anyhow, every time you post BS (i.e., every time you post), I’m going to dig up more evidence of an Enagic distributor breaking the law with illegal health claims (like Cathleen Lograsso) and forward a complaint to the FDA. One by one, these disgusting immoral pieces of human detritus will be called out until the company pays the price for their larceny. And they’ll have you to thank.
https://www.fda.gov/safety/reportaproblem/ucm059315.htm
LOL! LOL! Vogel, I’m beginning to depend on you for my daily laugh!
Still some name calling, but not as bad. I’ve been in plenty of debates, and what I’ve found is that when the other side begins to curse and to call names, that’s a sign they have nothing better to say and can’t deal with the facts in front of them. And when you yourself resort to name-calling, you are admitting defeat.
You’ve tried (but failed) to attack some of the facts I’ve laid out. But what is most telling is what fact you did NOT attack–specifically in the report, the most ASTOUNDING fact of all which is:
“The Korean and the Japanese governments OFFICIALLY acknowledged the efficacy of AIW (Alkaline Ionized Water) as a novel material for the improvement of abnormal intestinal fermentation, chronic diarrhea, gastric hyperacidity and dyspepsia.”
This is not only official, it is stated in Japan’s Pharmaceutical Affairs Law.
It was similarly approved in South Korea.
Now try and debunk that FACT!
You seem resourceful, try to prove this report wrong!
I’ll repeat the report for your convenience:
https://www.fda.gov.tw/upload/189/Content/2014012910285936813.pdf
Clinical Effect and Mechanism of Alkaline Reduced Water
Vogel has soundly proven you wrong dozens of times. Calling a spade a spade is just what he does. On the contrary, you crying about the tone is a sure sign that you have nothing else left to grasp.
As for the recent “Clinical Effect and Mechanism of Alkaline Reduced Water”, I thought I saw Vogel already cover it. It’s 2.5 pages and it doesn’t seem to reference any OFFICIAL acknowledgement. If he hasn’t addressed it, it’s probably because he hasn’t gotten to it yet.
Finally, as we pointed out before, this isn’t going to be a game of “Throw up 15 crap papers and tell us to disprove them all.” Alkaline water has been throughly debunked, so the burden of proof is on you to provide conclusive evidence from the US FDA that it works for something. Thanks.
Ben said: “I’ve been in plenty of debates, and what I’ve found is that when the other side begins to curse and to call names, that’s a sign they have nothing better to say and can’t deal with the facts in front of them.”
You’re clearly delusional and grasping at straws. Judging by your intellectually dishonest conduct to date, it doesn’t seem as though you’ve ever been in an honest debate in your life. I keep presenting ironclad facts, which you conveniently dodge time and time again, and you have consistently presented us with intentionally misleading BS, which has been thoroughly eviscerated point by point. All you do is lie, deflect, deny, and make an ass of yourself (and Enagic). Calling you much-deserved names (e.g., lying know-nothing desperate parasitic a-hole, etc.) is just the cherry on the sundae.
Ben said: “The Korean and the Japanese governments OFFICIALLY acknowledged the efficacy of AIW (Alkaline Ionized Water) as a novel material for the improvement of abnormal intestinal fermentation, chronic diarrhea, gastric hyperacidity and dyspepsia.’ It is stated in Japan’s Pharmaceutical Affairs Law…Now try and debunk that FACT!”
Why? You are again changing the subject. You’re trying to sell Enagic’s BS devices as a treatment for atopic dermatitis, not diarrhea. Like you, other dishonest idiot Enagic distributors are routinely promoting Enagic’s BS gadget, illegally, for an A-Z list of serious medical conditions.
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/hydrogen-water-fights-diseases/
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/ionized-water-remedies/
Aside from the illegality of those fraudulent claims, Enagic expressly states that their devices don’t cure anything:
“General manager Tomo Takabayashi distanced himself from medical claims, stating: “The water is not for curing any diseases, it is not miracle or special water for sick people. We warn and stop distributors if any wrong information is shared”.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/damn-miracle-water-nonsense-raising-9083923
And the FDA’s of two different countries have called out alkaline water curative claims as complete BS.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/571225/fda-claims-about-curative-effects-of-alkaline-water-not-substantiated
https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/No-evidence-alkaline-water-prevents-cardiovascular-disease-FDA-642279#
Not to mention the numerous sources across the media spectrum that have done likewise (e.g., the ones Lazy Man posted in his article, as well as numerous other media critiques). https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-news-quackery/alkaline-water-nonsense
https://cspinet.org/tip/alkaline-water%E2%80%94find-or-fraud https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/well/eat/alkaline-water-health-benefits.html
https://slate.com/technology/2013/03/ionized-and-alkalinized-water-ridiculous-health-fad-debunked.html
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/damn-miracle-water-nonsense-raising-9083923
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/alkaline-water-surges-despite-lack-of-evidence/
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/29/alkaline-water-cure-bs-science-beyonce-tom-brady
https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/xwqevn/no-alkaline-water-isnt-making-you-healthier
https://www.self.com/story/alkaline-water
https://business.inquirer.net/184754/the-4000-scam-on-alkaline-water
And then there’s the fact that author of the pH miracle Robert O. Young – the original source most of the alkaline water BS – is in jail for the next 3 years for practicing medicine without a license and was ordered to pay a $US105 million settlement to a cancer patient to whom he had provided fraudulent medical treatment.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-no-phmiracle-sentence-20170628-story.html
There’s really nothing left to debate, but nonetheless I’m willing to provide an analysis of the Japanese and Korean governmental regulations you alluded to if you can present us with direct links from those sources that pertain to the statements you were alluding to about alleged efficacy of alkaline water. Not having seen these sources firsthand, since you did not present any, it’s impossible to comment; however, in all likelihood, they simply approved water alkalizers as, essentially, exempted Class 1 medical devices, (about as stringent as the regulations for a bed pan) without weighing in at all on the efficacy of the devices for medical treatment.
I don’t particularly find the following source to be all that compelling, but what they’re saying with respect to device approval and health claims is highly credible and on point:
“In Japan the Pharmaceutical Affairs law has also issued strict prohibitions regarding marketing, advertising, and making claims…Advertising claims must not exceed or suggest more than those for which it was approved. The fact that these units have been classified as medical devices do not offer any evidence for their potential to treat and or prevent disease.”
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/alkaline-ionized-water-history-and-medical-approval
Literally everything you have alleged has been discounted as intentionally misleading BS. You can go crawl back under your rock now.
Thank you for helping clear the air Ben, It is greatly appreciated.
Thanks, how’s your experience with the Kangen water device? I’ve done alot of research and can’t wait to try it out. My daughter is not 100% convinced but she is willing to give it a try.
Ben must be the first person in the history of mankind to spend nearly every single waking hour defending extensively exposed quackery while at the same time waiting for the product to arrive at his house.
Thank you Vogel for pointing out a source that you yourself said, “what they’re saying with respect to device approval and health claims is highly credible and on point”
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/alkaline-ionized-water-history-and-medical-approval
I agree with you– what that source wrote is highly credible, but you’re cherry picking again Vogel. What’s most telling is what you DID NOT want to say was reported at that site.
1. It CONFIRMS that the Japanese government OFFICIALLY acknowledged Alkaline Ionized Water is effective for certain medical conditions! In fact, it is not just “official”, it is in their LAW!
“Pharmaceutical Affairs Law as follows:
Cathode Water (Alkaline Ionized Water):
Drinking alkaline ionized water is effective against chronic diarrhea, indigestion, abnormal stomach or intestine fermentation, acid control, and acid indigestion.”
They even gave you the reference you asked for Vogel:
Bulletin of the Monitoring and Guidance Dept . of the Ministry of Health and Welfare , Pharmaceutical Monitoring Vol. 57, issued on October 19 , 1992
2. “The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare [JMHLW] also approved the mildly and strongly acidic waters as medical substance.”
(Mildly and strongly acidic waters can be generated through the Kangen water device as they advertised)
3. “In 1978 the Korean FDA also approved these devices for similar reasons.”
4. “In Japan the Pharmaceutical Affairs law has also issued strict prohibitions regarding marketing, advertising, and making claims.”
You can’t call it “Wonder Water” or “Magical Water”
5. The Law also requires that “Advertising claims must not exceed or suggest more than those for which it was approved.”
And WHAT had Alkaline Ionized Water been OFFICIALLY APPROVED for?
Answer: “chronic diarrhea, indigestion, abnormal stomach or intestine fermentation, acid control, and acid indigestion”
Therefore anyone spewing that Alkaline Ionized Water is “BS without any credible backing” is ignorant of the facts.
I myself did NOT say it will cure Atopic Dermatitis, but I’m hopeful that the Alkaline Ionized Water will help my daughter since multiple scientific studies showed positive results for atopic dermatitis.
Ben said: “You’re cherry picking again Vogel.”
That’s rich! I just posted 9 articles from reputable sources that rip your scam to pieces and you ignored all of them. You’ve done nothing but cherry pick since you got here. Time and time again, when presented with crushing evidence against your arguments you just change the subject to some other deceptive moot point.
Like I said, I find the source dubious at best but the specific portion of text I quoted suggests that the device is regulated in a category similar to exempted Class 1 medical devices (which includes such mundane devices as bedpans) in the US, which makes sense, and the statement it makes about medical use is crystal clear:
“The fact that these units have been classified as medical devices do not offer any evidence for their potential to treat and or prevent disease.”
That statement completely undermines everything you implied about the relevance of the device’s regulatory status. Anything the site says with respect to specific details about the regulatory status of the devices, like Enagic’s, in Japan and Korea, is hearsay in the absence of clear and verifiable examples from the sources (i.e., Japanese and Korean regulatory agencies) themselves. That should be completely obvious. And in the end, that doesn’t even really matter because we’re not in Japan or Korea and whatever regulations they have are irrelevant to the use and marketing of the device here.
Ben said: “I myself did NOT say it will cure Atopic Dermatitis, but I’m hopeful that the Alkaline Ionized Water will help my daughter since multiple scientific studies showed positive results for atopic dermatitis.”
What you clearly implied is that Kangen would be effective for atopic dermatitis, and you based that completely implausible fairy tale on nothing more than a couple of studies in mice and a bunch of other irrelevant spaghetti that you tried to throw at the wall and clearly don’t understand at even the most basic level. It’s obvious that your entire story was BS, and the take home message is that you’re just another Enagic asshole doing the usual: lying and making illegal medical claims to swindle people into buying a mundane overpriced product and participating in a pyramid scheme.
The idea that you would be foregoing medical treatment and suddenly decided in the span of a few days here to shell out thousands for an Engaic system to treat atopic dermatitis based on mouse studies is beyond ludicrous. Enagic’s machine wasn’t even the brand that was used in the atopic dermatitis studies in mice, so your story is even more nonsensical. In contrast to the one-dimensional fictional persona you’ve created to deceive us with, a real and sane person would have bought the brand used in the studies, or simply borrowed some of the water from their “friend” (i.e., the one you who you said turned you on to Enagic), or you could have simply bought some alkaline water from the supermarket and done a test run instead of shelling out thousands.
Your story is so far-fetched and implausible that it’s insulting to one’s intelligence. Not surprising coming from someone affiliated with a shit show like Enagic – a bottom-feeder morally bankrupt enough to con people into buying into a blatant snakeoil pyramid scheme.
Vogel, let me quote you again regarding the source: “what they’re saying with respect to device approval and health claims is HIGHLY CREDIBLE and ON POINT” :
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/alkaline-ionized-water-history-and-medical-approval
I pointed out that they even gave you the reference to the FACT that the
Japanese Pharmaceutical Affairs Law acknowledged Alkaline Ionized Water is effective for certain medical conditions—-Now you are calling the source “dubious”???
This is the SECOND report that noted that FACT. I gave you the first report:
https://www.fda.gov.tw/upload/189/Content/2014012910285936813.pdf
Clinical Effect and Mechanism of Alkaline Reduced Water
They gave you the reference, go see for yourself if you don’t believe it!
Let me also repeat what you quoted earlier:
“In Japan the Pharmaceutical Affairs law has also issued strict prohibitions regarding marketing, advertising, and making claims…Advertising claims must not exceed or suggest more than those for which it was APPROVED. The fact that these units have been classified as medical devices do not offer any evidence for their potential to treat and or prevent disease.”
That means:
Japan’s Pharmaceutical Affairs Law prohibited claims of medical benefits BEYOND the medical conditions that were APPROVED—specifically, “Drinking alkaline ionized water is effective against chronic diarrhea, indigestion, abnormal stomach or intestine fermentation, acid control, and acid indigestion.” Classification as a medical device does not automatically give evidence of medical benefits, therefore claims of AIW being a treatment or cure for cancer or diabetes or any other condition are prohibited.
BUT, that doesn’t prevent people from drinking Alkaline Ionized Water in the hope of getting benefits for other conditions because there are many scientific studies that showed positive results beyond the gastrointestinal system.
This DESTROYS any suggestion that Alkaline Ionized Water benefits are not acknowledged by any reputable authority. The governments of two of the most advanced nations in the world, Japan and South Korea, counts as reputable authorities.
Ben said: “The FACT that the Japanese Pharmaceutical Affairs Law acknowledged Alkaline Ionized Water is effective for certain medical conditions.”
It’s entirely unclear that this is a FACT because, as I already pointed out, we have yet to see any thing directly from the Japanese Pharmaceutical Affairs Law that affirms Ben’s allegation, and there are no details direct from the source about their regulations regarding alkaline water devices. Ben is still (purposely) missing the point I was making about exempted Class I medical devices not requiring any evidence of efficacy or pre-market authorization. He thinks he’s finally found his one winning argument and is clinging to it desperately, which is not really surprising considering the low intellectual and ethical caliber of the dimwitted pinheads who flog this snake-oil BS.
He also can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that the source I mentioned above (the Molecular Hydrogen Institute), although dubious at best, undermined his claim with the following black and white statement:
“The fact that these units have been classified as medical devices do not offer any evidence for their potential to treat and or prevent disease.”
Ben said: “BUT, that doesn’t prevent people from drinking Alkaline Ionized Water in the hope of getting benefits for other conditions because there are many scientific studies that showed positive results beyond the gastrointestinal system.”
And that ladies and gentlemen is how unscrupulous snake-oil pyramid schemers run afoul of the law by encouraging people, in the absence of evidence and in violation of the law, to use their shitty overpriced products as cure-alls. A striking example is this shifty Enagic distributor (Cathleen Lograsso) who is illegally promoting Enagic’s overpriced pyramid scheme water flitration systems as a treatment for no less than 65 different diseases.
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/hydrogen-water-fights-diseases/
What Ben said above makes no sense. Even if alkaline water had some potential to alleviate diarrhea, it would be an absurd logical leap to think that it would be effective in treating dermatological conditions like atopic dermatitis, or anything else for that matter (it would be akin to suggesting that people should try to cure brain cancer with calamine lotion because it soothes hives). To do so on the basis of a couple of third-rate mouse studies would be beyond absurd. No one, other than this one-dimensional fictitious persona that Ben invented, could be possibly be that dumb.
Of course, it’s obvious that “Ben” the Enagic troll invented this fairy tale scenario out of thin air. At first I thought he was just painfully uneducated and ignorant , but at this point I’m thoroughly convinced that he doesn’t even remotely believe any of the BS he’s been spreading here. How could he? Nobody could possibly be that stupid and myopic, nor would any rational person stick their head in the sand and ignore the plethora of reputable sources and reams of other evidence that firmly establish this as a scam. No, what we have here is an Enagic distributor who KNOWS full well that everything he’s saying is BS. He’s just working his elevator pitch, trying to see what floats and what doesn’t; making an utter fool of himself in the process.
Anyhow, I’m up to 3 FDA complaints filed against Enagic distributors in the past week, and I’m just getting started. There’s an abundance of distributors illegally marketing Enagic, so it’s like shooting fish in barrel. I encourage everyone to file complaints as well.
https://www.fda.gov.tw/upload/189/Content/2014012910285936813.pdf
A few complaints to the FTC will follow next.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/GettingStarted?NextQID=67#crnt
FRAUDULENT CLAIMS ABOUT ENAGIC’S REGULATORY STATUS IN JAPAN
Ben said: “You’ve tried (but failed) to attack some of the facts I’ve laid out. But what is most telling is what fact you did NOT attack–specifically in the report, the most ASTOUNDING fact of all which is: ‘The Korean and the Japanese governments OFFICIALLY acknowledged the efficacy of AIW (Alkaline Ionized Water) as a novel material for the improvement of abnormal intestinal fermentation, chronic diarrhea, gastric hyperacidity and dyspepsia.’ This is not only official, it is stated in Japan’s Pharmaceutical Affairs Law…Now try and debunk that FACT! You seem resourceful, try to prove this report wrong!… what that source wrote is highly credible…It CONFIRMS that the Japanese government OFFICIALLY acknowledged Alkaline Ionized Water is effective for certain medical conditions! In fact, it is not just “official”, it is in their LAW!”
I’m not one to turn down a challenge about facts, unlike Ben who cowers and goes silent every time he is presented with iron clad evidence that eviscerates his inane self-serving assertions, and thinks that holding down the caps lock key on his keyboard is a substitute for a cogent argument.
Let’s dismantle this latest example of Ben and Enagic’s BS by first looking at the source he is relying on.
== Credibility of the Source (MHI)==
I had previously said that the source — the Molecular Hydrogen Institute (MHI) — looked dubious because it is focused on a fringe area of science (crossing the line into pseudoscience) and 3 of their 4 directors seem ill-qualified to lead a biological/medical research organization: e.g., an anthropologist, a business development specialist, and a guy with a BSc in biochemistry.
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/alan-j-redd
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/christopher-m-ubinger
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/tyler-lebaron
Nonetheless, they do completely discredit Enagic’s line of marketing by credibly dispelling the notion of microclustering and hexagonal water.
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/microclustering-the-making-of-a-myth-part-2-the-evidence-is-invalid
They also got it right here when they pointed out that the device classification category for Enagic’s hocus-pocus machines does not imply any efficacy in treating diseases:
“MARKETING PROHIBITIONS: In Japan the Pharmaceutical Affairs law has also issued strict prohibitions regarding marketing, advertising, and making claims…The fact that these units have been classified as medical devices do not offer any evidence for their potential to treat and or prevent disease. It has also been claimed that the majority of hospitals in Japan use and prescribe ionized water to their patients, but this is also not true. Many medical doctors in Japan have never seen or even heard of a water ionizer being used for hospital patients. There was an early Japanese advertisement that made it appear that this was the case, but it is not.”
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/alkaline-ionized-water-history-and-medical-approval
So while, the MHI is not what I would consider an ideal source, it scores maybe a 5 out of 10 on the quackometer scale, while Enagic and dolts like Ben turns it up past 11.
==What The Molecular Hydrogen Institute Said About Device Approval and Medical Conditions==
Here’s the full excerpt from the MHI that Ben is doubling down on:
“With addition of calcium lactate as a prerequisite, approval for a ‘synnohl liquid manufacturing apparatus’ was granted in 1965 and recognized as being a ‘medical substance generator’ under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law5 as follows: ‘Drinking alkaline ionized water is effective against chronic diarrhea, indigestion, abnormal stomach or intestine fermentation, acid control, and acid indigestion’.”
http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/alkaline-ionized-water-history-and-medical-approval
I haven’t seen any documentation about the regulatory status of alkaline water in Japan in 1965, and as far as I know Enagic didn’t even exist at the time, but what I do know for certain is that Japan’s regulations back then were terribly lax. It was akin to the days of the Wild West in the 1890s when bogus snake-oil products were sold with impunity. The JPMA regulations were revised in 2002 to bring them in line with the more stringent medical device regulations in other developed countries. According to the JPMA:
“In 2002, the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law (Law No. 96 dated July 31, 2002) was revised based on demands for augmentation of safety assurance in keeping with the age of biotechnology and genomics, augmentation of post-marketing surveillance policies, revisions of the approval and licensing system (clarification of the responsibility of companies for safety measures and revisions of the manufacturing approval system in accordance with international coordination) and a radical revision of safety policies for medical devices.”
http://www.jpma.or.jp/english/parj/pdf/2015_ch02.pdf
Similarly, according to Wikipedia:
“The July 2002 amendment to the law changed the regulatory structure for pharmaceuticals and medical devices, in an effort to align laws more closely with those in the European Union, Australia, Canada, and the United States. The amendment shifted the focus of regulation from the point of manufacturing to the point of sale, and adopted a risk-based classification system for products.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Affairs_Act_(Japan)
==What Japan’s Regulations Actually Say About Medical Devices==
For those who may not be aware, devices like Enagic’s are classified as Class I medical devices (a category that covers such mundane items as forceps and plaster casts), which as I indicated above, are not intended for the treatment of any medical conditions, nor are any such claims evaluated, and do not undergo a pre-approval process in order to be marketed.
“Under Japan PMDA regulations, a medical device can be classified as a General Medical Device (Class I), Controlled Medical Device (Class II), or a Specially Controlled Device (Class III and Class IV), depending on the risk level. For General Medical Devices, only a notification/self-declaration is required, and the product does not need to undergo the approval process by the MHLW and PMDA. Specially Controlled Medical Devices must be reviewed and approved by the PMDA and MHLW.”
https://www.pacificbridgemedical.com/regulation/japan-medical-device-pharmaceutical-regulations/
https://www.namsa.com/asian-market/three-pathways-medical-device-registration-japan/
Class I products follow the “ninsho pathway” and are merely “certified for sale”; they do not undergo a formal review, approval process, or a quality management system audit, but merely a notification of the manufacturer’s intention to market the product, which equates to being self-certified by the company.
https://www.namsa.com/asian-market/three-pathways-medical-device-registration-japan/
https://www.j-mdc.com/classification.html
“Class I medical devices can be marketed after a registration process known as notification. Applications for notification should include device descriptions (appearance, dimensions, materials, specifications, manufacturing process, etc.). Notification involves no review – it can be seen as a process of self-certification.”
https://www.j-mdc.com/classification.html
Copies of the post-notification certificate for Enagic’s machine as a Class I medical device in 2006 and 2010 can be found here (marketing authorization certificate ID #27B2X00070).
http://www.drinkkangensingapore.com/faq.html
https://www.enagic.com/media/pdfviewer/?f=eforms/certificateofmedicaldevice.pdf
So there you have it. Enagic devices are not approved for GI issues or any other medical condition in Japan. Any claims that Enagic or its distributors are making about the device being approved or officially acknowledged by the Japanese government as having efficacy for any medical condition are complete and utter BS. The Molecular Hydrogen Institute, although somewhat dubious, acknowledges this, as did Enagic, according to the following statement form the company’s GM:
“General manager Tomo Takabayashi distanced himself from medical claims, stating: “The water is not for curing any diseases, it is not miracle or special water for sick people. We warn and stop distributors if any wrong information is shared”.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/damn-miracle-water-nonsense-raising-9083923
Ben has doubled down on the ridiculous canard that Enagic was approved for treating GI tract issues in Japan (false) and therefore should also be effective for treating atopic dermatitis (moronic), not to mention the 64 other medical conditions for which these unscrupulous dolts are illegally marketing their bogus product.
https://www.alkalinewaterplus.com/hydrogen-water-fights-diseases/
That was the last tottering leg that Ben was leaning on. so he can go F off back to the MLM underworld now.
Vogel, it’s “Game, Set, Match” and “Checkmate”!
You’re being very dishonest if you continue to deny that the Japanese Government acknowledged that Alkaline Ionized Water provides benefits for certain medical conditions, specifically gastrointestinal symptoms!
I gave you a report from the http://www.fda.gov.tw that stated that fact. And you yourself provided a site that you specifically described as “highly credible” that also reported the fact that Japan’s
“Pharmaceutical Affairs Law as follows:
Cathode Water (Alkaline Ionized Water):
Drinking alkaline ionized water is effective against chronic diarrhea, indigestion, abnormal stomach or intestine fermentation, acid control, and acid indigestion.”
You are cherry picking again and purposely left out parts that prohibit the claiming of Alkaline Ionized Water as a treatment or a cure for any condition OTHER THAN what were officially APPROVED–which are: “Drinking alkaline ionized water is effective against chronic diarrhea, indigestion, abnormal stomach or intestine fermentation, acid control, and acid indigestion.”
You also left out this FACT (as reported in the “Highly Credible” site you posted):
“Drugs, Cosmetics, and Medical Instruments Act of Japan was revised in 2005, a device for the ERW production was re-authorized as a home managed medical device for the improvement of gastrointestinal symptoms.
Not only was Alkaline Ionized Water (or Electrolyzed Reduced Water) approved for GI symptoms in 1965, it was RE-APPROVED by the Drugs, Cosmetics, and Medical Instruments Act of Japan in 2005!
As referenced in the report, this re-approval was based on the “double-blind placebo controlled study”:
Tashiro , H., Kitahora , T. , Fujiyama , Y. , & Banba , T. (2000 ) . Clinical evaluation of alkaline ionized water for chronic – diarrhea a double- blind placebo controlled study . Digestion & absorption , 23, 52e56 .
The conclusion of the study:
“Conclusion
As a result of double blind clinical tests of alkaline ionized water and clean water, alkaline
ionized water was proved to be more effective than clean water against chronic diarrhoea,
abdominal complaints (dyspepsia) and overall improvement rate (relief from abdominal
complaints). Also, safety of alkaline ionized water was confirmed which clinically verifies its
usefulness.”
Ben seems to think that vomiting words on the page constitutes a rebuttal.
Enagic’s machine is classified as a Class I medical device. It is therefore not approved, not has it been evaluated, for the treatment of ANY medical condition. The iron clad evidence I provided above proves it in no uncertain terms.
Ben just can’t help but double down on BS, for like the hundredth time since he started posting here.
Ben (the sad sack Kangen distributor) said: “You’re being very dishonest…I gave you a report from the http://www.fda.gov.tw that stated that fact.”
ROFL. The hypocrisy burns! As I pointed out to Ben already, the “report” (i.e., journal article) is NOT a report “from” the Taiwanese FDA. Ben doesn’t understand the difference between a database and an agency-sanctioned report. Or, more likely, he does but just continues to double-down on transparent BS anyway.
Alkaline water is a scam, right by the name. If the alkalinity of water were the cause of the healthful effects of Electrolyzed Reduced Water (ERW), then you could just add some minerals to your filtered water at home and everything would be fine. Evidently some electrolytes in your water are beneficial, but that is not what this is about.
When water electrolysis machines were recognized in Japan as medical devices in the sixties, there was no good science to explain their effects.
One of the early promoters was cardiologist Dr. Hidemitsu Hayashi, but in the late nineties he switched to a different explanation, namely hydrogen, and he started marketing Dr. Hayashi’s Hydrogen stick as a better alternative to the water electrolysis machines. I have no idea how good it is. The bottom line is, Dr. Hayashi was directionally right, but wrong on the details.
For one thing, one prof. Sabetaja Shirahata of Kyushu University, with funding from the premier manufacturer of Water Electrolysis equipment, Nihon-Trim, published an article in a 1997 issue of BBRC, a scientific journal (Biological and Biochemical Research Communications) in which he argued that the benefit of ERW stemmed not from alkalinity, but from an antioxidant effect of the water, due to dissolved hydrogen. This could not be true, since hydrogen in that form would not be stable, and would not last 30 days, as Prof. Shirahata observed. In subsequent years it was proven that, instead, the answer was in the presence of molecular hydrogen, and that ERW machines (Water Electrolyzers or so-called Ionizers) are inefficient for the purpose, because they are tuned to make alkaline water – based on the alkalinity myth – and not dissolved hydrogen. There are new technologies out there to create Hydrogen Rich Water, which is optimized for production of dissolved molecular hydrogen, which will last about 24 hrs., or you can get it in pill form and it will start to dissipate immediately, so you make one glass at a time and you need to drink it right away. For more serious discussion of the science involved, see the website of the Molecular Hydrogen Institute. http://www.molecularhydrogeninstitute.com/water-ionizers-and-hydrogen-water-generators – there is a lot of serious research going on about the medical value of HRW and molecular hydrogen in other forms.
The present article also tries to make a point about nutrition, but gets the issue wrong. Anti-oxidants are superbly important for healthy nutrition, but the question is how you get them. It is indeed possible for them to become detrimental, and in general, you cannot take anti-oxidants in pill form. Supplements are good for expensive urine, and some are outright harmful if you overdose on them. The way to get your nutrition is from food, and for that, you best sources are the information of Prof. T. Colin Campbell at http://www.nutritionstudies.org, or the work of Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, and others who generally follow the Whole Foods, Plant-Based diet for which the nutritional science is all founded in the work of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, which was published in his books “The China Study” and “Whole.” The typical example is that vitamin C, which you definitely need, is absorbed by the body 265x better from an apple (or any fruit) than it is from supplements.
The question then becomes if you follow a healthy diet, which in practice means a Whole Foods, Plant-Based diet, which is proven to be the optimal human nutrition, is there any value in adding more antioxidants from HRW? Certainly in terms of medical emergencies HRW might have clinical value, but I personally doubt that it has much value on a day to day basis, if you eat a healthy diet, for you will have a constant supply of anti-oxidants, and nitric oxide from your green leafy vegetables, which will prevent cardiovascular disease and so on.
The myth of alkaline water deserves to die. It has nothing to do with the price of beans. It was once adduced as an “explanation” of the effects of ERW, but once you understand how that all happened and was subsequently disproven, it is time to forget about it. Most importantly Kangen obviously is a financial scam, like all MLMs are, regardless of whether the FTC shuts them down or not. Any MLM is a pyramid scheme as an economic fact. Kangen merely sells you a $1,000 piece of equipment for $4,000 and uses the difference to create a pyramid scheme, which is no different from all the other pyramid schemes. Again, I say that as an economic fact, leaving it to the regulators how they want to deal with that.
In short,
Thanks for stopping by Roger. You hit the nail on the head for the most part. Alkaline water benefits — simplistic fairy tales. Kangen — BS/pyramid scheme. Whole food diet — good. Supplements — BS for the most part.
But this “quantum” stuff on you website and claims like this are BS:
“Medicine, to the contrary, remains stuck in Newtonian physics and a paradigm of upward causation…the inability of medicine to explain a lot of diseases and healing phenomena is the direct consequence of this obsolete, Newtonian, mechanistic and reductionist model to which it is limiting itself even today, more than a hundred years after the validation of the quantum physical model.”
It would behoove you to edit that out and stick to commonsense advice. Quantum physics has no place in a discussion about public health issues and nutrition. It’s obfuscation.
Anyhow, cheers!
Vogel: Read Amit Goswami’s The Quantum Doctor and perhaps you will understand.
The reductionist reasoning that underlies western medicine (allopathy) has led to physicians being in the position of the blind men describing the elephant. To them everything looks like a nail because the only thing they have is a hammer.
T Colin Campbell on the nutrition side, and Dean Ornish on the clinical/diagnostic side are making complementary arguments for a holistic approach – Ornish calls it the unified theory of health. The Quantum Doctor provides the metaphysical framework for what they are talking about.
https://hippocratessays.com/unified-theory-of-holistic-health/
Roger said: “Read Amit Goswami’s The Quantum Doctor and perhaps you will understand.”
Why? Goswami has no expertise in medicine, so I’ll gladly pass on that offer. Doubly so given that he chose Deepak Chopra, of all people, to write the forward. I read a book of his once upon a time and it was so devoid of substance that I could feel myself losing IQ points with the turn of every page. I’ve since met him personally, and had the misfortune of witnessing a few of his “debates”. He’s good at keeping his mouth moving but that’s about it.
I studied quantum physics at the university level so I’m fairly certain that I already understand the topic quite well. I’ll flip your admonishment and advise you to go to university and study medicine and quantum mechanics for a decade or two, because as it stands now, you are groping in the dark.
Roger said: “The reductionist reasoning that underlies western medicine (allopathy) has led to physicians being in the position of the blind men describing the elephant. To them everything looks like a nail because the only thing they have is a hammer.”
The unintentional irony of threadbare comments like that is that they come from the blindest of the blind — those with no expertise whatsoever in the subjects about which they pontificate. Might help sell a few books but that’s about it. It has nothing to do with “quantum” anything.
Roger said: “The Quantum Doctor provides the metaphysical framework for what they are talking about.”
Like I said before, the word “quantum” has no place in a discussion about health and medicine. It’s used as an obfuscating but catchy buzzword that might help sell books to naifs, but that’s about it. Like I said before, several of your comments about Enagic and alkaline water were spot on. You should have quit while you were ahead.
Well, you have the right to think that this approach has no merit. I would agree with you about Deepak Chopra, but not about Amit Goswami.
It’s beside the point. I am 5 decades into these matters and am the son of a doctor, who raised me to think of the world this way. It may not be your approach, but that does not mean it has no merit.
Roger said: “Well, you have the right to think that this approach has no merit. I would agree with you about Deepak Chopra, but not about Amit Goswami.”
It’s not a simple issue of the right to disagree; it’s about objective facts. Goswami has no expertise in medicine. That’s a fact, end of story. That he would team up with Chopra is just the icing on the cake (or more aptly, the turd in the punch bowl).
Roger said: “I am… the son of a doctor, who raised me to think of the world this way.”
And I’m the son of a trumpeter, but I couldn’t play the trumpet to save my life. Comprehensive medical knowledge is acquired at universities through years of diligent study, not via DNA or osmosis at the dinner table.
Roger said: “It may not be your approach, but that does not mean it has no merit.”
It has no merit, period. These charlatans impugn the entire of field medicine by saying that doctors are armed with only a hammer. But at least a hammer is useful for hammering nails. These quantum dipshits are armed with nothing and have contributed a big fat zero to the betterment of health and the diagnosis and treatment of disease. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that the things they say actually make people stupider.
Vogel: There is no point in continuing this dialog, as long as you want to traffic in categorical statements and not even provide any support for what you are saying. I wish you happy sailing.
Roger said: “Vogel: There is no point in continuing this dialog, as long as you want to traffic in categorical statements and not even provide any support for what you are saying. I wish you happy sailing..”
There’s no point because you have no rebuttal. It’s not that my statements were categorical; they were self-evident truths. How man lives have Amit Goswami and the rest of the circle-jerking “quantum” medicine BS artists saved? Big fat zero.
You should go see a quantum proctologist. Maybe he can get your head out of yer arse.
Let’s move on. This is starting to get off the topic of the Kangen Water.
Thank you for this article! I am a chemistry professor and assign my general chemistry II students a cross-curricular research paper each year. One topic I recommend them choosing to research is a business/economics/chemistry paper on Kangan water. While your blog post here wouldn’t pass my muster as a reputable direct source, it does give good perspective and direction on ideas to research. My hope is always that my students know their chemistry well enough to spot the nonsense disguised as science by Kangan. It’s amazing what a little scientific literacy can do for a person! Thank you.
Thank you for your service good sir!
A bunch of crooks! Taking a whole bunch of vitamins a day, drinking Kangen water, or maybe you need to market an air purifier tank so you can breathe clean air and take it with you everywhere. You don’t want to pollute your lungs with dirty, contaminated air. People think they have found a fountain of youth. Remember a daily exercise, good nutritional foods, and plain water are all you need for life. Your immune system is strong enough to safeguard your health.
Ben, its very clear to see you have no investment in this product and its soley due to you daughters ailments. Don’t worry Ben, i believe you (;
You definitely had a convincing arguement Vogel. I was about to purchase one myself. Now I’m on the fence after reading these comments. I’ve been drinking it for about a month buying it from a store. Hoping to heal my digestive issues. No improvement yet. However the injuries I’ve obtained from the gym about 5 years ago seem to have improved. I had tendonosis in 2 areas (shoulder and forearm) which have give me trouble ever since. Not even able to do a push up. If I did I would flare things up causing discomfort for at least a week, sometimes 2. But lately I’ve been doing some light exercises with little discomfort now. But I have also started meditating and changing my mind set to a more positive one. Even listening to 285 hz music that supossebly helps heal and regenerate tissue. Unless this has been the fix. Had hope with the kangen water as well but not so much now. Kind of wish I didnt read this to be honest because even if it was just a placebo it was working. For the tendon issues anyway. An expensive placebo effect though. Although I will continue the meditation and remain positive. One thing I wonder is if it actually helps detox because i definitely had side effects of it. Weak, achy, more tired and urinating frequently for about a week.
John said: “One thing I wonder is if it actually helps detox because i definitely had side effects of it. Weak, achy, more tired and urinating frequently for about a week.”
Detox what exactly? Alcohol? Prescription drugs? Environmental pollutants? The term “detox” is used far too vaguely and indiscriminately, especially in snake-oil/alt-med circles. Drinking water is going to have a negligible effect on the body’s detoxification pathways (predominantly hepatic; i.e., via the liver). The kidneys play a role in eliminating some chemicals, but renal excretion wouldn’t be affected to a greater degree by Enagic’s water vs any other kind of water. BTW, the placebo effect cuts both ways – the term “nocebo” is used when the psychologically-induced effects are negative. If you were urinating more, it’s probably because you were drinking more.
BTW, get off the fence. “Kangen water” is a predatory con game designed to trap suckers. and desperadoes.
Thanks for the input Vogel. I do realize the nocebo effect is probably why my issues have persisted so long. The frequent urination wasnt a result of drinking more though. I drank about the same amount as usual. Those symptoms I mentioned actually only lasted a little while. Although I stopped drinking the water for 4 days and the symptoms stopped only to reoccur again once I started but they didnt last very long the second time around. Dont know what to make of that. Could of been something bad for all I know. I have blue eyes and noticed a slight difference when drinking this. Kind of nicer actually. Noticed this as well when I drank adaya clarity for a short time. Anyways I’ve decided not to buy it. Its just way too much money anyway. Think I’ll buy an RO unit. Some sort of water filtration system. Haven’t decided yet. By the way, do you go by the name of smartxalex on YouTube? You two sound like the same person.
Cheers mate and good luck! Nope, not smartalex but I’ll check him out.
Buddy it sounds like have a personal vendetta against Enagic. It’s great water that has plenty of benefits. What water company do you work for?
I’m not sure it’s great water or has any benefits (beyond that of normal water). Given the extensive top rated journalist articles, there doesn’t seem to be any good reason to be involved.
Pat said: “Buddy it sounds like have a personal vendetta against Enagic.”
Vendetta is defined as (1) a blood feud in which the family of a murdered person seeks vengeance on the murderer or the murderer’s family; (2) a prolonged bitter quarrel with or campaign against someone. I suppose you could say definition #2 fits, although it’s not “personal” per se. I campaign here against the Enagic organization because they are (a) selling grossly overpriced water filters; (b) running a pyramid scheme; (c) engaging in deceptive pseudoscientific marketing; and (d) fraudulently marketing their product as a panacea for treating a myriad of diseases and a substitute for real medicine — a practice that could easily cause injury to consumers.
Anyone with a conscience should take a strong stand against what Enagic is doing. At the very least they shouldn’t be an apologist for the organization’s misdeeds.
Pat said: “It’s great water that has plenty of benefits.”
It’s nothing more than filtered ionized water; its only “benefit” is that it is wet and watery. That’s not “great”; it couldn’t be more mundane. Nothing about it justifies the insultingly inflated price of the filtration systems or the rampant fraudulent snakeoil/pseudoscientific marketing.
Pat said: “What water company do you work for?”
Did someone drop you on your head? Is it beyond your imagination that someone could be critical of Enagic without being employed by another “water company”? The stupidity and dishonesty of Enagic’s sales drones knows no limits.
This company has been selling snake oil suedo benifits now for 43 years and has only just now found out that 100s of thousands of people world wide have not derived any benifits at all so one can only conclude that you are either part of big pharma and or working for an other water filter company. For your information and omitting the fact that people get to try the water free if it makes a difference to their lives then they may buy the best available on the market. No one holds a gun to their head and as for a piramid scheme they are illegal right through the world. Enagic pay the distributor a commission very similar to most companies out of the fifty percent markup that most multi national companies keep as profit. This gets devided into 8 pieces not multilevel several levels yes very much like standard business works reward for effort. Tell my 68 year old body it has not experienced the good things that have been happening to it even my own Doctors are trying to work out what is happening. All great news now I would rather be drinking B. S Water feeling this good for as long as I can. You would spend $3000 ON a big plasma T V. Than this overpriced water machine. Well lucky we have choices and my money is with a 43 year old company not a self opiniated know it all been to university and knows it all even disputing other more qualified Dr’s just be cause they are Japanese and not from the good old US OF A. I f anyone should get their head out of their rrrrs it is you. BIG PHARMA EMPLOYEE.
Francis Iremonger wrote, “For your information and omitting the fact that people get to try the water free if it makes a difference to their lives then they may buy the best available on the market.”
Well there’s this thing called the Placebo Effect (look it up) that makes trying products to see if it makes a difference in their lives useless. Many people who are given ordinary tap water would tell you it made them feel great. It doesn’t mean tap water is clinically effective.
“No one holds a gun to their head and as for a piramid scheme they are illegal right through the world.”
It’s illegal to violate any number of laws. However, law enforcement can’t police everything. FTC workers have admitted that it can’t police MLM/pyramid schemes. So yes, another reason to stay away from MLM/pyramid schemes is that you just don’t know if they are illegal or legal.
As for no one holding a gun to your head, that’s a strange extreme to take. Do you experience this shopping at Target? How about we just resort eliminating snake oil products?
In MLM, 99% of people lose money. While some may pay out 50% to distributors, they keep 50% for themselves (obviously). Of the 50% they pay out some 45-48% go to the people at the top of pyramid, so you have thousands and thousands at the bottom trying to fight for that last few percent.
For the billionth time, MLM is not a business!
It is refreshing that you do admit that it is “snake oil.” You should have stopped right there though.
By the way, who is spending $3000 on a plasma TV these days? I don’t think they even make plasma TVs any more. You can get a pretty great 65″ for under $1000 and 55″ for probably under $400 now. They are amazing pieces of technology. Certainly no one should pay more to electrify their water
So should all the water companies stop selling water? Why is every company putting out alkaline water and making millions?
Truth in Advertising covers that well here. I’ll quote their expert, Tanis Fenton, a registered dietitian and epidemiologist at Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary “It’s all about marketing. “There is no science to back it up.”
Certainly Tesla, Google, and Samsung are not companies ptting out alkaline water or making millions off of it.
It would be great if they all stopped selling it, but since they probably still want to make their millions (assuming your characterization is correct), then consumers should educate themselves and stop buying. Also, as that Truth in Advertising article pointed out, consumers are suing the companies selling alkaline water.
Alright, since you really really hate this company (as I can see from this post and your comments) please tell me, what water is the best for the human body, if not Alkaline? If you say bottled, then everything you said is invalid.
I’m going to go with the water that has 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Most natural thing on Earth, right? No need to mess with it.
My Chiropractor gave me a gallon of 9.0 and then 8.5 Kangan water after every visit touting its “healing properties”. I had a sty on my eye, and was given 2.5 Kangan water to use to heal it, saying (and I quote) “2.5 Kangan water is an approved antibiotic by the FDA”. They also gave me 11.0 Kangan water which they called “Beauty Water” to spray on my 70 year old skin to improve my skin.
I’ve been invited to an “informational meeting” about Kangan water this evening at the Chiropractors office. I have a feeling that the meeting is more about MLM.
Thanks for your very effective, fact based information about the Kangan BS. I’ll not be going back to that Chiropractor.
Good call Mary. Anyone who would tell you that “Kangan water is an approved antibiotic by the FDA” is a danger to society.
H2O, nice. Was wondering if you personally drink bottled water or filtered water from the sink or just straight up tap water or spring water or distilled water? All of them are H2O :).
I think I wrote that bottled water was a scam 12 years ago. I usually don’t label things as scams easily, but you can do an easy Google search and find many reputable media mentions. My understanding is that it can be essentially tap water, but in a bottle.
I’m a fan of filtered water myself.
However, let’s end this discussion that is unrelated to Kangen. Thanks.
There’s a critic for everything, haha. I personally, don’t care about studies. I care about my own experience.
[Editor’s Response: In Kangen Water’s case, it seems like nearly every expert and media outlet is a critic. Did you see the section I posted in the article?
You shouldn’t care about your personal experience, because it could be the placebo effect. You could have the same personal experience carrying a rabbit’s foot in your left pocket or throwing salt over your shoulder.]
Kangen water has transformed my life dramatically in ways I could not have imagined. I am 26 years old and in very good health other than some gut issues, and since drinking the water, I no longer struggle with chronic constipation and other digestive issues, my Peri-oral Dermatitis is gone (thanks to drinking the water and spraying 2.5 and 6.0) , my seasonal allergies have improved and I feel amazing. When I go on vacation and I don’t have my K8 for a few days, I notice the difference dramatically.
[Editor’s Response: Sounds like you weren’t really in very good health to begin with. I think it’s fair to say that Kangen Water is not an allergy medicine. That’s simply ridiculous.]
And as an added bonus, I no longer buy bottled water, which helps in reducing the plastic epidemic.
[Editor’s Response: Why did you buy the bottled water. Filtered water is cheap and easy. You could have saved yourself a few thousand dollars and donated it to a worthy cause that helps reduce plastic or cleans our oceans. It would have been a much wiser use of your dollars.]
AND On top of that, because I love the products so much, being an Enagic Distributor has transformed my finances and the finances of those I’ve introduced to it so much that I was able to leave my mind-numbing corporate job for a life of freedom, joy and impact, as have others that I’ve served with this amazing company and community. And in regards to the pyramid scheme comment… you’re right, pyramid schemes are illegal… and yet Enagic’s compensation plan is not illegal. So I’m not sure what you’re getting at there. MLMs allow people spread the wealth of amazing products while making money at the same time. There’s nothing wrong with that. I make money off of direct sales that I make, but I also receive commissions off of sales that my team makes and they make money of of the sales their team makes. They don’t make MORE than the one that made the direct sale, they just get a piece of the pie. There is nothing wrong with that. It keeps everyone accountable in the system. It keeps me motivated to serve my team and make sure that they are successful in their Enagic Business. And that accontability system works.
[Editor’s Response: Since you admit to being an Enagic Distributor, that would make the above health claims an illegal testimonal, right?
How do you know that Enagic’s compensation plan is not illegal? What makes you think that? MLMs and pyramid schemes operate in an area where they are essentially unregulated by the FTC, except for a few of them. A former person at the FTC said that they can’t prosecute MLMs/pyramid schemes because it takes years (sometimes a decade) and millions of tax-payer dollars – (source.) That leads us to cases like Vemma, Burnlounge, and Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing who claimed to be legal until the lawsuit revealed that clearly they weren’t.
Spreading wealth is fine, but it can be done with a simple sales commission program. That’s direct sales. If there’s a recruiting pyramid involved or you have a downline, you should get out of that MLM right away.
There’s a lot wrong with the system you described. Try substituting the word “pyramid” instead of “team” above. I think you’ll see what I mean.]
Enagic and Kangen water isn’t a scam… it’s helping people the way it says it does. If its not for you, or you don’t vibe with it, then don’t frickin buy it… no one’s forcing you to do anything.
[Editor’s Response: I didn’t buy it. I want everyone to be aware of all the experts who say it is junk science. Also, I don’t want anyone to lose money in any MLM/pyramid scheme as 99% of people lose money in them.]
There’s no reason to get all up in arms and trash the company and the products because of it. Those that are selling the products believe in them and want to help others benefit their own lives in the same ways. There’s nothing wrong with that.
[Editor’s Response: We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.]
Also, as far as the 2.5, acidic water goes, I use it for sore throats, sinus infections, eczema and other infections that I can reach topically and it works wonders. So whether its “FDA Approved” or not, I really don’t care. It works. and I know its healthy and natural, because its water that comes from my tap and goes through my machine which I know the ins and outs of. It’s not a drug. Its water modified by the machine to be more usable by the human body. And it 100% works for me.
[Editor’s Response: It’s clear that you don’t care about what illegal health claims you make. Enagic should pull your distributorship in my opinion. You should also read the FTC’s guide to endorsements.]
Again, I only know my own experience and the experience of thousands of others that I know own a machine. And I stand by that 100%. This negative blog aside. As someone whom their life has been transformed in miraculous ways through this company and these products, I find it sad that you’ve worked so hard to attempt to turn people against it.
[Editor’s Response: You personally know the experiences of thousands of others? Like you felt it with them? You might want to read No Your MLM Health Product Does NOT work.]
Not everything is for everyone (although I know that everyone can benefit from this water), and Enagic and Kangen water won’t be for everyone and that’s perfectly ok!
[Editor’s Response: I love when MLMers say “not everything is for everyone.” It’s a common line. Would you say the same thing to domestic abuse?]
But with that being said, this information and terrible accusations you’re making just aren’t true for everyone. There are so many people who could have benefited from this water and you now may have left a question in their mind, and because of that, they will no longer be able to receive the benefits…
[Editor’s Response: Enagic could get the scientific testing necessary to prove the benefits of the water to the FDA. They’ve chosen not to For that reason, every reader should ask WHY Enagic doesn’t want to show it works. Then maybe they should read about the dozen other MLMs making illegal health claims. I hope they’d be smart enough to come to the conclusion that making a product sold via MLM doesn’t make it a miracle cure for medical conditions.]
Also, I know that there are people like me who feel the same way out there, because as you said despite articles being published against the effectiveness of Kangen Water, people are still buying the machines. That’s because the personal experiences of others will always beat the “facts” or opinions of some guy that wrote an article.
[Editor’s Response: As the saying goes, There’s a sucker born every minute.]
Again, I’m not saying Kangen Water is a fix all for the entire world. But it is great products with a great compensation plan for those that choose to promote the products. And I say that from my own experience.
Wow, a lot of work went in here to rank for Kangen Water Scam…wonder what the objective was…. I run an SEO agency so I have an understanding of the work involved
Since you like science and you obviously know how google works lets look at some proper research. Anyone can make a website rank on Google if they know enough about SEO (which you obviously do).
If your readers want to do real scientific research they should use Google Scholar or PubMed. Google Scholar only allows verified scientific research (and not opinions like are in the post) and therefore cannot be manipulated by SEO the way Google can.
You can prove any argument you like with Google as anyone an say anything on a website and get it ranked. However, you cannot trick Google Scholar in the same way. It’s why if you search for Kangen Water Scam in Google Scholar this website is not listed….because the data on it has not been verified as facts……
The scientific name for Kangen Water is electrolyzed reduced water and if your search for this using Google Scholar you will find 35,500 scientific papers on the subject ranging from tests that show effects on cancer cells, diabetes, etc…
I won’t claim to have read them all, but I have read over 200 of the papers and I saw enough to convince me.
You can read as many of these as you like and form your own opinion’s based on scientific facts as opposed to people’s opinions.
Too all the chemists who commented….it’s an electrical reaction, not a chemical reaction. There are no chemicals used. just electricity. That’s why the chemistry makes no sense, because there is no chemistry involved :-)
John
Really not much work at all. Since I wrote the article more than 5 years ago, I don’t really remember how much time I put in. However, I was the primary care-giver for my 7 month year old at the time and had another under 2. Given my wife’s military duties, that’s kind of the deal. I don’t imagine I had a lot of time.
If you do know SEO though, you know that Google respects my extensive analysis of MLMs and that I’ve been blogging consistently about personal finance since 2006. That’s not a Kangen Water thing or an SEO thing.
Google Scholar and PubMed can and have been manipulated by companies. There is this thing called research for hire. Companies do it all the time. In fact, reputable science experts have showed that they can fool you into believing that chocolate leads to weightloss by crafting purposely poor research. Again, I’d rather focus on rasing my kids, but you should do more research into p-value fraud, arbitrary end-dates, and junk journals with low impact-factor that PubMed still categorizes.
At the end of the day, almost all readers shouldn’t do real scientific research through PubMed or Google Scholar. They are resources designed for scientists and the average reader is unlikely to get anything meaningful out of it.
While I did post opinions in my post, they are the experts’ opinions independently chosen by many of the top journalist publications in the country.
Actually the reason why my website isn’t listed is that this website is not designed for Google Scholar’s terms. The information on Google Scholar is not verified as factual either. It may have been peer-reviewed, but even the National Institute of Health points out the problems with peer-review. And don’t confuse it with a systematic review of someone duplicating the results to verify it as factual.
Maybe you should stick to your SEO thing, because your understanding science is greatly lacking.
I’m not sure that is the approved scientific name in the United States. Has the FDA approved that? Is it deemed an FDA approved medication for any of those conditions (cancer, diabetes)? If you are a distributor of Kangen Water, I believe the FTC could cite you for an illegal medical claim. So maybe it’s a good thing that you are just going by “John” here.
You could find and read more than 50,000 studies on vitamin E, vitamin C, or a number of minerals. You can convince yourself of anything on PubMed. You better take your shark cartilege… and just about any other supplement sold at GNC, right? If you want to buy anything that looks good on PubMed, you better have thousands of dollars a month to spend.
I’ll take the experts’ opinions in a pile of iconic journalistic publications. These people are not paid to give their opinions. The articles you read that are published on PubMed may not be. So a wise person trusts the experts, right?
I think one of sources was this one. It covers the electricity of ions in detail. Again, I’ve kind of moved on years ago. Maybe you should have commented when the article was published. I’m not sure the scientists I cited are here are reading the article. You might want to write to them via the respected universities or instutitions they work for. Or in some cases, through the journalists.
If you don’t think my website and article is reputable, why waste time in the comments? Go to the sources and the big stage and put your science knowledge against theirs.
Finally, I’d love to hear more comments about the pyramid selling aspect of the article. Truth in Advertising has extensively documented dozens and dozens of MLM companies’ marketers using illegal health claims. So it should be clear to all readers (IMO) that the first step any legit health company needs to eliminate their MLM compensation plan. If a company isn’t willing to do that, then why even bother with their products, right?
John said: “The scientific name for Kangen Water is electrolyzed reduced water and if your search for this using Google Scholar you will find 35,500 scientific papers on the subject.”
Actually the scientific name for Kangen water is “bullshit”, just like what you posted above. A Pub Med search for “electrolyzed reduced water“ yields a mere 29 hits. You were only off by a factor of a thousand or so.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22electrolyzed+reduced+water%22
John said: “I won’t claim to have read them all, but I have read over 200 of the papers and I saw enough to convince me.”
BS! You wouldn’t know how to read and understand a scientific paper any more than you could understand a Navajo code talker or ancient hieroglyphics.
John said: “Too all the chemists who commented….it’s an electrical reaction, not a chemical reaction. There are no chemicals used. just electricity. That’s why the chemistry makes no sense, because there is no chemistry involved :-)”
It’s actually called electroCHEMISTRY – most certainly a type of chemical reaction. I won’t bother trying to re-explain the chemistry involved in electrolyzing water (because your intentions here are clearly dishonest) except to point out that without dissolved mineral salts ions (i.e., chemicals), Kangen water would simply be water. In fact, the systems require the addition of chemicals (mineral salts) to generate acidic and alkaline water.
https://www.enagic.com/shop/en/supplies/electrolysis-enhancer.html
It’s bad enough that you know nothing; that you’re loud and obnoxious while being profoundly ignorant adds insult to injury.
Now, I actually think John was trying to goad me into something that their lawyers could use in defamation lawsuit against me. This is probably an appropriate time to reiterate that my comments here are my opinions only and an attempt to best serve the community of readers in a hopefully discussion/debate.
This space is about learning and that works best by presenting information which I did my best to do. Everyone is free to form their own opinion from that information that I presented. It is, to the best of my knowledge, honest and accurate. If there is some discrepancy, this comment space can and should be used to explain why any facts are incorrect.
@ Vogel I said that a Google Scholar search yielded 35,500 results. That is still the case.
I have read over 200 of these papers.
Regarding your comments on the addition of chemicals to make acidic and alkaline water, you are incorrect.
The Enagic machines use a saline solution (salt and water) to make the 2.5 which is electrolyzed hypochlorous acid. Since you are such an expert on chemistry I am sure you know that you cannot make this to an FDA approved level without the addition of a saline solution.
@ LazyMan I am not interested in goading anyone. You are perfectly entitled to your opinions and you are free to express them as am I.
I mistakenly thought that a website that encouraged comments was open to free speech and a place where people could express different points of view. Obviously I was wrong.
You have done you research and you have formed your opinions. I have done mine and I have formed mine.
They happen to be different, but if we all had the same opinions then the world would be a very boring place. Hopefully we can at least agree on that……..
If you don’t know Vogel’s history of comments here, you should spend some time reading up on other MLM quackery articles.
I have to laugh a little bit at your research if you think that water and saline are not related to chemistry. Readers should be pick to quick up that your research skills are barely high-school quality.
You didn’t mistake anything about this website being an open to free speech and different point of views. I could have just deleted your comment instead of publishing it… so I obviously believe that.
It’s fine to have different opinions. I just want people to have access to accurate information. If you want to have an opinion that gravity doesn’t exist, go for it! Good luck!
John said: “Vogel I said that a Google Scholar search yielded 35,500 results. That is still the case.”
I wish I could say I was surprised that an Enagic lick-spittle can’t execute a Google search properly. A Google Scholar search for “electrolyzed reduced water” – in parentheses to capture the exact term – yields only 768 hits. John was off by a factor of almost 50x.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22electrolyzed+reduced+water%22&btnG=
By not using parentheses John generated roughly 34,000 erroneous hits, which is inexcusably inept, but it’s even worse that he persists in trying deceive people into believing his grossly inflated claim, even after it was disproved.
John said: “I have read over 200 of these papers.”
Staring at arcane technical jargon that he cannot understand does not qualify as “reading”. Like I said previously, it’s obvious that John wouldn’t understand a scientific research paper any more than he would understand a Navajo code talker or ancient hieroglyphics.
John said: “Regarding your comments on the addition of chemicals to make acidic and alkaline water, you are incorrect. The Enagic machines use a saline solution (salt and water) to make the 2.5 which is electrolyzed hypochlorous acid.”
It’s downright painful to witness this clod doubling down on BS. Let’s review John’s original comment:
John said: “Too all the chemists who commented….it’s an electrical reaction, not a chemical reaction. There are no chemicals used. just electricity.”
I pointed out that fallacy of John’s claim, noting the following:
Vogel said: “…without dissolved mineral salts ions (i.e., chemicals), Kangen water would simply be water. In fact, the systems require the addition of chemicals (mineral salts) to generate acidic and alkaline water.”
Now John replies by (a) saying that I was incorrect in pointing out that chemicals are required to make Enagic’s BS water; and, in the same breath, (b) plainly admitting that chemicals are added to make Enagic’s BS water – the exact same type of chemicals to which I had referred in my reply (i.e., mineral salt; NaCl). The faulty logic is so painful it burns.
John said: “Since you are such an expert on chemistry I am sure you know that you cannot make this to an FDA approved level without the addition of a saline solution.”
I’m enough of an expert to know that the FDA doesn’t set any limits on what is or isn’t added to Enagic water. In fact the FDA has essentially nothing to do with Enagic in any oversight capacity because such filtration devices do not require premarket approval or any kind of clinical testing or validation.
John said: “I mistakenly thought that a website that encouraged comments was open to free speech and a place where people could express different points of view. Obviously I was wrong.”
No, John mistakenly thought he could personally gain something by coming here and using blatant misinformation and shoddily constructed arguments to promote his fraudulent magic water machine. In fact, the site is open to free speech and different POVs — John was allowed to post his BS. What’s really riling him up is the ease with which we exposed him as a predatory ignoramus.
John said: “You have done you research and you have formed your opinions. I have done mine and I have formed mine.”
I am stating ironclad facts. John’s research, as all can plainly see, is even more worthless than his BS voodoo water filter.
John said: “They happen to be different, but if we all had the same opinions then the world would be a very boring place. Hopefully we can at least agree on that……..
I long for the “boredom” of not having to deal with predatory assholes who expend such great effort to defraud consumers. The world gains nothing by listening to an idiot whose “opinion” is that 2 plus 2 equals 5.
I’ve been keeping up with this blog for a couple of years.. Rock Solid information.. My friend who became a part of the MLM Kangen water scam is now out of $5k. He only sold one. For a Cancer fighting machine, you think he could sell more!
After reading this article; I would be extremely hesitant to trust anything published by this guy.
Simply: “ but water is water as far nutrient quality goes.” is enough to see that he has know idea about water.
Please seek advise from a more qualified source. On any matter from this website.
Ummm, I also sourced several, maybe a dozen experts saying the same thing. Even if you think I don’t know anything about water, you should heed the expert advice. It’s scientifically conclusive in my opinion. It doesn’t seem disputed as far as I can tell.
Tiam said: “After reading this article; I would be extremely hesitant to trust anything published by this guy.”
You know full well that (a) the article is accurate/reliable, and (b) no trust is required; just a bit of commonsense and the ability to understand some basic facts from Chem 101. You merely feign being “extremely hesitant”, as Kangen trolls are wont to do, in an attempt to persuade others to ignore this rather obvious information and serve as fodder for the Kangen pyramid scheme.
Tia said: “Simply: “ but water is water as far nutrient quality goes.” is enough to see that he has know (sic) idea about water. Please seek advise (sic) from a more qualified source. On any matter from this website.”
It’s remarkable that the most vehement defenders of the Kangen scam are those who lack basic language skills, like the ability to spell simple words and write coherent properly punctuated sentences, in addition to not understanding basic high school level chemistry.
Your lame attempt at damage control was a woefully epic failure.
Lest we lose sight of the central issues at stake here, it’s important to remember that this is a thinly veiled pyramid scheme that’s touting ordinary water as a miracle cure. Everyone involved is doing a grave disservice to the public. It’s disgraceful and you should be deeply ashamed.
Thanks for the thorough article. Still no legitimate studies to date I can find that prove a single benefit from this water machine. Still getting trolled by ‘believers’ I see!
Reading this article and the comments leads me to believe neither side. One side is an extremist that is in total disbelief that water can cure things (which makes no sense) and the other side are extremist that is in total belief that water can cure all things (which also make no sense) and both sides are arguing using Google facts from ppl no one knows.
[Editor’s Response: Why does it make sense that water can cure things? What, other than dehydration, has water ever cured in the history of mankind? If water cured things, nearly everyone in America would never get sick, because nearly all of us (perhaps just “all”) have access to plenty of water. It’s like claiming that having access to air cures things.]
So I will use common sense based on just life experience on spotting bs. Because we should know by now anyone can make a website throw in links of ppl that have nothing to do with anything.
[Editor’s Response: Well your life experience may not be good at this, but let’s give it a try. So far you are off to a bad start with the claim that water cures things. While anyone can make a website, I’ve also written more than 2000 articles over a span of 13 years, which is a lot more difficult. You maybe spent 13 minutes on this comment, so maybe have some more respect for the person with 13 years invested. Also, citing sources is generally considered good research and reporting. The reader can judge the sources I cite for themselves. Personally, I believe they speak about Kangen Water in detail and appear to be experts. That wouldn’t be “nothing to do with anything”, in my opinion.]
Make up facts add some big words and pay to be the top 10 on search engine sites and ppl will use those sites to win arguments while deceiving ppl online.
[Editor’s Response: If you seen anything that I’ve written in this article, or any other article of mine that is, “made up”, please let me know! I am happy to clear anything up for you if you don’t get it. I don’t see too many people taking the time to personally respond to comments like this.]
So this is what I’ve learned. When someone tries to tell you that something 100% doesn’t work it’s a lie somewhere in there nothing 100% doesn’t work all humans are individuals and ppl respond to different things often, and on the flip side when someone tells you something 100% does work that’s also a loe in there nothing 100% works either for the same reasons. Even though percentages weren’t said that’s what I got out of reading these comments.
[Editor’s Response: Do you think you can cure lung cancer by eating glass? I would 100% say that you can’t. If you think that some people can, we have a problem.]
I came here to see if the company was a scam and I got an artie about why the machine don’t work. The fact is i didnt come here for that because i dont care. Companies sell shit products all the time. From diet pills to enhance you penis pumps. I wanted to know about the actual company. And only got two sentences about it.
[Editor’s Response: We must have different defintions of what a scam is.]
So I came across this job posting in the sales area saying make 5k a month presenting company product twice a month base pay plus commission. As a sales agent this sounds normal. It’s always alarming when you dont see the company logo or any information about what you’re actually selling. So I inquired. They email me back explain its 1099 second alarm. Base pay plus commiosn is always a split w2 1099 or a w4. They explain its 2 presentations a month and follow up calls to the ppl who want more information. That’s normal and standard so no alarm there ( the previous alarms weren’t red arms more like yellow not that serious). It goes on to give the standard must pass background check yadda yadda then shows a sample video of the presentation we will be doing and it’s a Kangen water presentation. Now my flags are up to orange. Why? Because I’ve seen ads for this product on craigslist several times but it was a work from home position that wanted you to buy the machine before selling g it to others, which seemed sketchy to me so I stayed away from it. So to see this now I’m really alarmed. But after the video i keep reading the email because i figure well maybe this is the actual company to the machine if I’m giving presentations with a base pay and they haven’t asked for any money yet.
Well the next sentence is and I quote “You are not required to purchase the product only present it, but you do have to make a down payment for the presenting kit”). Finally I’m at a red flag. I have done seminars sold several products and never have I ever had to pay up front to present a clients products. I emailed them back and asked how much is the down payment, and if the down payment is the same price they were asking for in the other craigslist articles for the work from home sales jobs then I know it’s the same scam just packaged differently. I was hoping to get confirmation from thos article but I didn’t. I will just go with my gut.
[Editor’s Response: I haven’t seen Kangen Water pitched like that, so I didn’t write about it. It could be unique to your area for all I know. However, good idea to realize that you shouldn’t have to pay your own money to try to sell someone else’s product. If you invest your time and knowledge, they should be covering ALL the expenses.]
Also alkaline water isn’t new they have bottled up alkaline water with electrolytes in your grocery stores. I have kidney disease and whenever they take to much off I’m instructed to drink alkaline water or Gatorade to avoid getting dialysis cramps which is the most painful thing I’ve ever felt in my life and I’ve had three kids. It didn’t cure my kidney disease though. Water in general just keeps you hydrated and helps nourish you. Drinking more water period helps you and makes you healthier that isn’t a secret. Though electrolytes does clear your skin up a lot better than regular water it does not help with dry skin. I have eczema way longer than kidney disease and my skin son has it, plus having kidney disease makes your skin worst. I heard that whole lie about alkaline water curing it and no it doesn’t.
So my conclusion based on my assumption and experience is the company sales position is a scam you should only pay for a business that has a product that you sale to customers. But you should never have to pay in for a job. Unless you’re working from home and buying a headset because you don’t have one or some office supplies. But I think it’s a scam.
For the alkaline water does nothing argument isnt entirely true, but come on the alkaline water cures diabetes and eczema that’s complete bs. If you want to test it don’t spend 6k on a machine go to the grocery store buy a couple cases of life water test it out yourself save you some thousands.
[Editor’s Response: Well eventually, we got to the same place, even if we didn’t take the same road. I still have not read any compelling evidence that alkaline water does anything, and I’ve included plenty of experts who say the same (or that it simply does nothing). I’d put it in the same category as carrying around a lucky rabbit’s foot, but your opinion may be different.]
[Editor’s Note: Removed Kagen Water affiliated site. This isn’t the place to advertise.]
Whether or not it’s a scam, would depend on what the sales people aka distributors are promising you during the pitch. The marketing strategy for the company is MLM. They have a pyramid system in place that rewards sales in a pretty substantial way. Enagic doesn’t really use money to buy ads or infomercials, they just pay the people a commission on each sale instead.
I’ve personally used the machine for some time now, and there are things that I like about it (like how easy it is to drink it), but there are also things that I’m eh about (like the inflated price of the machines). The quality of the machine is good and they are simple to operate, so I like that. Whether or not these machines are a scam will, in my opinion, depend on your expectations. I’ve heard about folks telling potential buyers that the water will cure cancer. I mean cmon.