Melt, live or hydrogen? Marketing to expose the myths about water

Perhaps there are no other substance that would be so “loved” marketers and charlatans-healers. According to their assurances, the water may rejuvenate, and cure all diseases and strengthen health, and even (!) to share memories.

Sometimes dark matter and it looks less mysterious, in comparison with all the magic properties of simple compounds H2O. talks about the most popular myths and throw the rascals out “clean water”:

1. “Living” water

The authors of this legend did not think long, but just had based his invention known to everyone fairy tale about living and dead water, which received Ivan in a wonderful garden on the edge of the world. According to them, the water, just like in Russian folklore, can cure any ailment – and not even the need for her to ride on the right horse to distant lands. Several thousand – and you will be sent by mail a miracle device which, by means of electrolysis (the decomposition of substances into components with the aid of electric current) turns ordinary water from the tap in magic. How does it work?

In the heart of the device – the simplest cell (a device for carrying out electrolysis). Due to the fact that in ordinary water is always present salts of potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium, the cell accelerates ions through the electrodes, causing the liquid around podslushivaet. The resulting alkaline solution is actively in contact with air, with the result that there are carbonates and bicarbonates of potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. That is, the living water from the point of view of chemical analysis is, in fact, an ordinary mineral water with salts in an unknown concentration. This water can really help with heartburn. As, however, and regular soda. But if you have, for example, gastritis, drinking the resulting liquid, you can earn a stomach ulcer.


And how is it “dead” water? In the second part of the liquid during electrolysis stands out pure chlorine, which is partly evaporates and partly dissolves. That is, we obtain the disinfectant chlorine. This “dead water” can be treated the wound to kill the bacteria. As with any disinfectant agent.

To the wonder of the device there is only one question: why pay such money for a water and chlorine solution?

2. Meltwater

She is also credited with medicinal properties, recommended as a cure for all diseases and even offer with the help of her “special structures” to fight obesity. Charlatans sell special devices, and the manufacturers of bottled drinking water, knowing this myth, ambiguous hint at the purity and usefulness of their products through images of snow-capped mountains on the label. What really?

It is as though banal sounded, but the water – she and in Africa the water, and literally. Regardless of whether the dialed it from the tap, brought from the mountain or found on Mars, water is always two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. The taste and properties of water is determined exclusively by the impurities that it contains.

What impurities may be contained in the melt water? It all depends on where it was snow that melted and bottled. If he can get near industrial facilities or highway, there can be dangerous chemicals such as lead. And if the snow lay in the mountains where no one has gone before, the water can be very clean. It turns out that meltwater is useful only if it is received in a protected or ecologically clean area.

Followers of the hypothesis of melt water claim that it can be done at home to get rid of the harmful contaminants ordinary tap water. To do this, a jar of water are sent into the freezer and wait for her to freeze, but only half. All that will remain in the middle of the vessel, after he half-freeze is supposedly toxic water, which gathered all harmful impurities. This conclusion is based on the following law: solutions freeze at a lower temperature than the pure solvent (in this case water).

But how to catch the moment when pure water freezes, and harmful solution yet? Because the freezing point of a solution depends on the number of impurities. The more solute, the slower it turns to ice. How does the eye determine what cold only pure water? Unfortunately, no. You need to know the initial amount of impurities, and without laboratory equipment it is impossible. Experience with a can of half-frozen water is devoid of any evidence.

3. Hydrogen water


A real boom in recent years. The unique technology of Japanese scientists, a revolutionary discovery and a means is confirmed by numerous studies. Water saturated with hydrogen, all of us will make younger, more energetic and healthier – and all at the expense of its ability to absorb free radicals. For a price, of course: from 300 rubles per liter of an antioxidant. Is it true?

No. At least, nowhere except promotional materials on “Japanese innovation”, there is no mention of scientific works devoted to the hydrogen water. In a small number of studies that actually find, there was some indication of a possible positive effect in diabetes of the second type, rehabilitation of cancer patients after chemotherapy and some other illnesses, but the effect of water was tested on a small sample of patients and in most cases without placebo control. This means that the hydrogen of the water no scientific evidence of effectiveness. So is it worth to pay that kind of money for water with unproven antioxidant action, if for the same money you can purchase a month’s supply of vitamin C, whose ability to absorb free radicals have not any doubt in the scientific community?