Paleo Water?!

A quickie here, but I know many of my readers don't do the whole social media thing and this is just too something for words (can't even think of a good adjective there!)  

I try and read Jimmy's stuff in a reader to avoid the ads, but there it was ... screenshot right.

So I couldn't resist clicking ... and no, it's not April Fool's Day and no it's not a spoof!  Awww shucks ... you go to the link today and the paleo header is not displaying at the moment :(  It was a Geico-style cave man juxtaposed with Jimmy Moore's "The Thinker" and the LLVLC promo.  Hope they bring it back!!

What is this alkaline water ... I Google ...

You know you're on to something when Mercola is against it!  Not sure what to make of this ;-)  

James Fell has done a great job on the marketing shenanigans of it all, it's an entertaining read!  Check out:  Paleo has jumped the shark (and if you haven't already and you've got a little time, check out his other recent work: Low carb and paleo dieting as religious zealotry ).  Saved me some blogging time and gave me a few laughs.

Seriously, as I read the copy there on Paleo Water, I kept thinking it was a joke.  Then again, I was convinced Ben Greenfield's Superhuman Encoder bracelets were a joke.  But no.

screenshot from manual
So no need to rehash Fell's commentary vis a vis bacteria in water and all that.  But yet again we have a bastardization of science to scam a buck so I thought I'd address that briefly.  There is actually some truth to the claims about H2, despite this initially setting my BS meter needle jumping.  The research, however, by no means justifies the claims made for this $500 filter unit (1 year lifespan with usual use, $200 for replacement cartridges).  Turns out, the usually fairly chemically inert H2, is an unlikely antioxidant in the body (serious studies exist).  If this is occurring at any significant rate, that means it is oxidized preferentially to the other substances that would otherwise be oxidized.  That's how antioxidants work.  If hydrogen gas is oxidized this would mean:

H2 → 2H+ + 2e

That would, if anything, be in direct conflict with the alkalinity claims as this would increase the acidity of the environment (lower the pH). 

Forgetting the infused hydrogen though, and focusing on just the claims about alkalinity, which may an anomaly of gas dissolution or due to other substances added to the water, you have yourself full on scamming going on.  If the water is slightly alkaline, once it hits your stomach acid it would be neutralized on the spot anyway.  Seriously.  Which got me thinking ...
Whatever you do, don't use this Paleo Water to wash down your Paleo Logix Adaptagest!  
Yes that Poliquin-inspired scamming, courtesy of Robb Wolf and Chris Kresser,  slapping the paleo label on useless betaine HCl tablets, came first.  That stuff ain't cheap so to get the most out of the utterly unsubstantiated claims of increasing your stomach acid, the last thing you want to do is sabotage your efforts by washing them down with alkaline water.    

And besides, everyone knows that paleo man had supplements before clean drinking water anyway.....


Comments

Healthy Longevity said…
It will be gluten-free water next if not low-carb water!
charles grashow said…
http://www.sixpackabs.com/paleo-has-jumped-the-shark/

http://www.sixpackabs.com/low-carb-and-paleo-dieting-as-religious-zealotry/

Rudolph Leibel et al. conducted a carefully controlled study in 1992, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and asserted: “Variations in fat intake from 0% to 70% of total energy under conditions of equal energy intake produced no significant changes in body weight over periods of observation averaging 33 d [days].” In language that we can all understand: Leibel’s study put participants on balanced energy diets: they controlled to ensure that the participants took in the same number of calories that they burned over a 33-day period. The participants got a varied range of overall fat content, from 0 percent to 70 percent, but everyone’s weight stayed the same, once again proving the first law of thermodynamics. Why did the participants’ weight stay the same? Because they were on maintenance-level calories. It does not matter what percentage of protein, carbohydrates or fat you consume in the grander scheme of weight loss and gain. It is all the simple formula of calories in minus calories out. Golay and Bobbioni, in their 1997 article “The Role of Dietary Fat in Obesity,” agree: “… fat is almost exclusively used or
stored in response to day-to-day fluctuations in energy balance.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/55/2/350.full.pdf
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full
John Smith said…
This is a rip off of my Hydro Water product. My water has had the oxygen completely removed from it, so instead of H20 you are getting pure H2. De-oxygenated water has been proven in long-term trials to cure every type of metabolic disorder and thyroid dysfunction and to result in rapid and permanent fat loss while at the same time increasing lean muscle tissue.



Don't fall for this Paleo Water nonsense, it is a cheap knock off, demand the genuine item, Hydro Water.
Wuchtamsel said…
Naaah, I will just continue to use the real thing. In the field of expensive quackery it's just worth not to fall for the cheap imitations.
It lasts a (shortened) lifetime.
http://yotamak.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8341c145e53ef0120a67d2201970c-800wi
billthegalactichero said…
Get enough H2 in your body and you might lose weight, but stay away from open flame, "Oh, the humanity!" ;D
carbsane said…
I'm waiting for the negative carb water ;)
carbsane said…
OK I'm confused what you posted here??
carbsane said…
WOWZERS!!
Healthy Longevity said…
And it is being endorsed by Jimmy Moore who does not even believe in evolution.
lucyricardanon said…
So this is actually a real thing? I saw it on facebook and just assumed it was a joke. Not only is is completely ridiculous, I still can't get past the idea that someone who doesn't even believe in evolution is hawking "Paleo" nonsense.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
Perhaps it's not so surprising when you consider the imbuing of water with magical properties has been inherent in religion for millennia. This cultural ingraining probably plays a part in people being receptive to homeopathic remedies whose 'active' ingredients are nothing more than water and belief .
Donnie Reilly said…
You guys need to knock off the negative comments. Paleo Water™ provides all of the missing nutrients that your body craves and it tastes great, plus it bridges the .....uh.... it bridges the ....... it....... uh........... I'm sorry, I can't do this.
Mike Victor said…
CarbSane, this is a bit off topic, but I needed somewhere to vent my latest frustration about Jimmy, which is him posting this on Facebook:

"UCLA study finds link between high-fat, high-calorie diet & pancreas cancer: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/link-found-between-high-fat-high-248415.aspx ~ This is a MOUSE STUDY and they extrapolate from that they should be promoting a low-fat, low-calorie diet to humans?! Riddle me this Batman--WHY?! The researchers say the physical response that happens to the mice is the same thing that happens in humans. How can they know this for certain if human testing of this concept has not been done?"

He had a similar fit a few years ago over a study showing that a low carb diet caused atherosclerosis in mice, yet he himself has used mouse studies in the past, or let his guests use them without challenge. The first link is especially pathetic because he tries co-opting the "slowly absorbed carbohydrate" diet as a low carb diet, when they're obviously not the same thing. He also says "Dr. David Ludwig warns of health dangers from consuming starchy carbs" when the slowly absorbed carbohydrate in the mouse study was amylose: a type of starch. This guy is so full of lies and contradictions, you'd have to be in ketosis not to see them.

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/the-dangerous-epidemic-of-a-fatty-liver-next-big-health-crisis-researcher-warns/2055

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/study-brain-cancer-tumors-significantly-smaller-on-high-fat-low-carb-diet/1600

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/1172/dr-thomas-seyfried-on-killer-carbs-ketosis-as-a-cancer-cure-episode-302/

livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/the-llvlc-show-episode-483-study-reveals-ketogenic-epilepsy-connection-dr-fred-pescatore-still-championing-low-carb/11175

As for Paleo Water, I saw the guy who runs that Alkaway company posting some really nutty comments on Christina Warriner's Paleo Debunking video a while back. He was in denial about the fact that Paleo is a high meat diet, when you have Loren Cordain saying you should get 55% of your calories from meat, Robb Wolf posting Paleo meal plans with meat at every meal, Mark Sisson telling people to get the bulk of calories from meat, fish, fowl, and eggs in his Food Pyramid Etc. Etc. He's just another entrepreneur jumping on the Paleo bandwagon without even knowing what the hell it is, like the people here who evidently think that dairy products are part of the Paleo diet (and that ghee qualifies as having "no oils" when it's technically butter oil, but I digress...)

http://www.amazon.com/Paleo-Butter-Ghee/dp/B00AN2CB84
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