by Alderin Ordell, MA

A question that people often ask me is, "What happens to your stomach acid when you ingest alkaline water? Does it hurt your stomach? Does it nullify the alkalinity of the water? Luckily, the answers to these questions are that it doesn t hurt your stomach nor does your stomach interfere with the benefits of ionized water. Let me explain why .First let s talk about how the stomach works.

How our stomach works

The inside of our stomachs is acidic. The acid is used to kill bacteria and viruses that come with the food. According to Sang Wang, author of "Reverse Aging" "The stomach pH value is maintained at around 4. When we eat food and drink water, especially alkaline water, the pH value inside the stomach goes up. When this happens, there is a feedback mechanism in our stomach to detect this and commands the stomach wall to secrete more hydrochloric acid into the stomach to bring the pH value back to 4." So, with this feedback mechanism, drinking ionized water seems like a lost cause, right? Not so fast.

The answer to our quandary comes in the way the stomach wall makes hydrochloric acid. According to popular misconception, our stomach is constantly acidic. Not true. If there was a pocket of acid anywhere in our body eventually it would burn a hole inside of us. So, as Sang Wang explains, "The cells in our stomach wall must produce hydrochloric acid on an instantly, as-needed basis."

The ingredients in the stomach cell that make hydrochloric acid are carbon dioxide, water, and sodium chloride. "The byproduct of making hydrochloric acid is sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate, which goes into blood stream. These bicarbonates are the alkaline buffers that neutralize excess acids in the blood; they dissolve solid acid wastes into liquid form. As they neutralize the solid acidic wastes, extra carbon dioxide is released, which is discharged through the lungs."

As Sang Wang explained, the byproducts of making hydrochloric acid are alkaline buffers. If you read the article about how an ionizer works, you'll see that in order for an ionizer to make alkaline water, it must have an acidic by-product. In order for it to make acidic water, it must have an alkaline by-product. In order for it to make acidic water, it must have an alkaline by-product. The same thing is going on inside our stomachs. When we eat food, our stomach wall produces acid, then it sends alkaline buffers through our blood to neutralize acid outside of our stomach, while the carbon gas is released from our lungs.

Alkaline water alkalizes our bodies
So, when we drink ionized water, the alkalinity is passed directly into our blood stream, along with those alkaline buffers. As Sang Wang explains, "Alkaline or acid produced by the body must have an equal and opposite acid or alkaline produced by the body; therefore, there is no net gain. However, alkaline supplied from outside the body, like drinking alkaline water, results in a net gain of alkalinity in our body."

You can, therefore, drink alkaline water at any time of the day. If you drink with a full stomach, the alkalinity is passed into your blood stream with the alkaline buffers. When you drink with an empty stomach, the water is entering a neutral environment so there is nothing to interfere with it and it is passed into the blood stream.

The bottom line is your body likes alkaline products entering it, so your body has mechanisms in place to make sure it can receive the alkalinity.