"Water and Wood, Wan and Qing Yang" speaks of the beauty of waterfront scenery. Water is the most abundant molecule in the human body, and the substance we rely on most in our daily lives. Water not only provides us with what we need to live and breathe, but is also an important source of literary imagination. Because of the importance of water, the market and water-related products are numerous, and in this "health" as the trend of the times, most of these products are not costly, and often to "scientific research to prove" for their own product endorsement, these products are really as advertised on the therapeutic effects, worth it to us to spend this much money?
Another type of water-related message is that a "good heart," or "good thoughts," will produce beautiful water crystals; conversely, evil words will produce ugly water crystals. This idea mainly from the Japanese Jiang Ben Sheng, Jiang Ben Sheng's book is quite popular in Taiwan, he claimed that there is "scientific" evidence to prove that the water can understand human thoughts, my opinion is Jiang Ben Sheng's water crystals and the "good heart" has nothing to do, but rather and take pictures of the human psyche as well as the initiative to choose related. Jiang Bensheng has never had any scientific training (he studied international relations at university), yet in Taiwan we see his name everywhere and refer to him as "Dr." (he does not have a doctoral degree, and he once studied at an alternative medicine university in India, whose webpage appears to be a single building and whose SciFinder database does not allow me to find any scholarly papers from the university, while Changhua Shihua University has several scholarly papers from the university. Changhua Teachers' University, on the other hand, has hundreds.) What's creepy is that we see Katsumi Emoto's "experiments" cited without question in speeches by religious leaders and entrepreneurs, in interviews with alternative (spiritual) medicine professors, and even in campus activities by school faculty.
The purpose of this web page is to examine claims about water from the molecular viewpoint of modern chemistry, especially those that we believe to be untrustworthy or erroneous, in the hope of providing you with information about these products before you pay for them, and to help readers recognize the difference between science and pseudo-science, such as Katsutoshi Emoto's photographs, which are 100 percent pseudo-science.
Water is a big market
Water is very important to health, there are at least dozens of products on the market that claim to be good for health and maintain youth and vitality: "energy water" to make water molecules to form small molecular clusters, easy to enter and exit the cell to remove toxins, "ionized water" to electrolysis to make alkaline water, I heard that it can prevent the acidity of the body to be good for health, but these health products cost 30,000 or 40,000 yuan! But these health products cost 30,000 to 40,000 dollars! Even bottled mineral water has to be advertised as "alkaline". There is also expensive mineral water that has been blessed by a "professor". A while ago, we also saw that the "energy water" product endorsed by a baseball player was accused of exaggerating its effects, and the team member even said, "I think it tastes pretty good! The question is, is the water that tastes good worth spending so much money on? Besides, consumers are spending the money for health reasons (the company claims that the product can "improve immunity and inhibit the production of tumor cells"). The Department of Health (DOH) has ruled that eight of the products in question violated Article 69 of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law and imposed fines. The DH's efforts to dispel rumors are heartening, as the DH's Food Information Network recently provided a page on food-related Internet rumors!
Misinformation on the Internet
Type in a few keywords, such as "energy water," into Google and you'll find thousands of web pages, all of which claim what we would consider to be misinformation on Dakan (.com). Why is there so much more wrong information than right information in the online world? I can think of two possible reasons: first, the profitable parties are more willing to build websites, and second, scientists are more willing to put effort into researching new things rather than "proving" something they think is stupid to be false. For those who enthusiastically embrace a particular idea, disproof is a difficult task; for example, "proving" that there are no ghosts in the world is an almost impossible task.
The following are a few common water-related misconceptions. First, we'll present them along with our comments, and then see the links for more details:
(1) Alkaline water produced by electrolysis is good for your health because it neutralizes acidity?
Our opinion: the degree of alkaline water produced by electrolyzed water is negligible, the acid of fruit juice and the alkaline content of milk of magnesia is much larger, but it will not affect the pH level of the human body, the human gastric juice is commonly known as hydrochloric acid, and all the alkaline water is impossible to pass through the stomach and still remain alkaline. The pH of the human body is controlled by buffering substances (such as carbon dioxide) and enzymes, too acidic or too alkaline are not good.
How does the body control pH?
(2) Don't drink pure water because it lacks minerals?
Our opinion: pure water does not contain minerals, some sell mineral water publicity accordingly and advise people not to drink reverse osmosis water or distilled water, in fact, water in the body to play the role of a solvent, drinking water without pollution is most important for the maintenance of human health, the human body needs minerals from the diet (such as vegetables and fruits).
(3) Small molecule group water (energy water) is more effective than tap water in and out of the cell, you can let the cell to stay young?
Our opinion:There is no evidence to support the claims of various structural changes to water, or so-called "water molecule clusters" to promote "cellular hydration", these arguments are unfounded and incompatible with the known mechanism of water molecules entering the cell wall "one molecule at a time", and there is no evidence to suggest that any dietary additives or therapies can delay the aging process. 2003 Nobel Prize-winning chemist Professor Peter Agre tells us that water molecules enter and exit cells more effectively than tap water. Prof. Peter Agre, the 2003 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, tells us how water molecules enter and exit the cell. Readers can also refer to the Chinese version by Prof. Yun-Ming Tsai, Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University.
(4) Is magnetized water (p-water) good for you?
Our opinion: water molecules have electric dipoles (localized positive and negative charges within the molecule), but there is no magnetic dipole, except in extreme conditions, water will not be affected by the magnetic field, there is no credible research to confirm that magnetically treated water has a therapeutic effect, and that the claim of "inhibiting the production of tumor cells" is completely unfounded.
(5) Does oxidized water energize people?
Our opinion: water can only dissolve a tiny amount of oxygen, and drink into the gastrointestinal tract of oxygen will not be absorbed by the body; inhale a mouthful of fresh air, the body gets much more oxygen!
(6) A "good heart" can produce beautiful water crystals?
Our opinion: No way! If water could be scientifically proven to understand human thoughts, Masaru Emoto would win the Nobel Prize! Because this incident violates all our water-related knowledge, Emoto's water crystals were photographed with a microscope at 200-500 times magnification, which means that hundreds of pictures could be taken on the ice of the same size as the picture, and these hundreds of pictures are all the same? Or did Katsumi Emoto just pick out the ones he wanted? Why did the Caltech physicists take photos of snowflakes that are exactly the same as, or even clearer than, the photos on the front page of Emoto Sheng's book? How do the real snowflake experts see the results of Emoto Sheng?
How do you distinguish between science and pseudoscience?
(7) Water, green beans and rice can hear good words?
Our opinion:Our mung bean germination experiment, the results show that there is no significant difference in the germination situation when the experimenter says good words and bad words to mung beans.
Related Websites
Scientist's Web page on water crystallization : Caltech physicist Prof. Libbrecht, an expert on snowflakes, has a Web page with a complete description of the phenomenon of water crystallization.
Quackwatch : A non-profit organization that exposes inaccurate medical information, with an advisory board of over a hundred medical, pharmacy and nutritional experts.
Magician Randi's superstition-busting webpage :The author is a former magician who is known worldwide for debunking the tricks of the magicians.
Shermer's Questioning Web page: Tells you how to be skeptical in a world where information is confusing, written by a columnist for <<Science Guy>>.
Professor Stephen Lower's introduction to water and its structure: an introduction to water, by a retired university professor.
What is Pseudoscience? A description of pseudoscience and how it is utilized.
Water molecule pseudoscience and charlatanism :Contains a wealth of information on the various advertisements on the market that promote the "water molecule".
Water Pseudo-Science & Hoaxes :Prof. Stephen Lower, retired from the Department of Chemistry at Simon Fraser in Canada, provides a complete and interesting explanation of water pseudo-science, and we have quoted a lot of information from his web page.
Committee for the Examination of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP): A committee of paranormal investigators consisting of a number of well-known scientists and popular science writers.
Nobel Foundation
Jinghan Hu:Professor, Department of Chemistry, Changhua Teachers University