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Researching alkaline water can be a confusing and frustrating endeavor. One article can have you thinking it’s the answer to all of life’s problems and then a click later it sounds like nothing but a scam. Alkaline water, like many things these days, seems to only offer 2 options. You’re either fully in or you’re fully out.

The truth is something closer to the middle. There are good points made from both sides of the issue, but those same sides also tend to not recognize their own shortcomings. Which leads to a lot of misconceptions and taking passed each other.

The 5 most common are: (in no particular order)

Alkaline water is a miracle cure

It’s not. Our bodies don’t function that way. We need a wide array of nutrients and complicated biological reactions to take place every day to maintain good health. Now, are many of us chronically dehydrated and can a lot of problems be helped by drinking more water? Absolutely, and since alkaline water is more hydrating than other options, that help is even more substantial. But it does not replace well-rounded nutrition and it can’t make up for years of poor choices on its own.

Alkaline water is a major piece of improving your health, especially when it’s viewed holistically. But don’t think you’ll be able to maintain a poor diet, deplete the body’s mineral stores, and then use alkaline water to fix current or future problems.

The body self-regulates pH

This is one of the most maddening things you’ll often come across. Usually written, said, or quoted by someone in a medical field. They stress that the body continually balances the acid and alkaline and doesn’t need any help. It’s partially true, the body does indeed balance itself. But it’s the how that process happens they avoid for some reason.

Are we all issued a supply of alkaline minerals at birth to use the rest of our life? Is there a resupply mechanism or is that all we get? Could what we eat and drink matter?

Using their logic, eat whatever junk you want and you’ll be fine. The only reason those with a diet high in mineral and nutrient rich foods are healthier than those who eat and drink poorly is luck. Or maybe they were just issued fewer minerals at birth.

A better answer would be the body has a complicated pH regulating system that requires a consistent input of alkaline minerals to facilitate the balancing. If alkaline water is delivering good levels of minerals, it’s a good thing.

pH is the same as alkaline

This is the area of biggest disconnect between the two sides. The marketers often say alkaline, when what they really mean is pH. Conversely, those who say there is nothing to alkaline water are typically looking through the lens of alkalinity.

You can have very low pH and high alkalinity or low alkalinity and high pH. The 2 measurements are not the same and they don’t have to be directly related.

pH is a measurement of hydrogen, alkalinity is a measurement of how effectively a base can neutralize an acid. Which one seems more important?

It’s overpriced

This is one of those legacy objections when the only way to get alkaline water was to “invest” $2000-5000 in an electric ionizer. But today there are additional options.

The awareness of alkaline water’s benefits is much broader today. You can find numerous bottled brands in the local store. This is still a bit pricey, especially if it’s your only method (and you’ll lose the fresh, antioxidant benefits) but if the choice is between a cheap non-alkaline bottled and an alkaline version, the difference is under a dollar.

If you want a home system, or even one to travel with, the old school electric ionizers that cost thousands upfront and hundreds a year in filters and upkeep are way overpriced. No longer are those options justified, especially when more of the sticker cost goes to the network sales organizations than the product itself. The more affordable option is a natural mineral based system you can buy direct. These will often have superb filtration and will only cost $0.03-$0.08 per liter. Only a few cents more than tap water and much, much cleaner.

Everyone can do their own cost/benefit analysis, but $0.25 or less a day to feel better seems like a wise investment.

Stomach acid doesn’t affect it

Of course it does. Those who say it doesn’t do so for two reasons.

First, they don’t understand the difference between pH and alkalinity. Secondly, they typically contribute the health benefits to the water’s pH level only. So when someone counters with “stomach acid will negate the pH of the water”, their only option is to fall back to nonsense.

Acid will always negate an alkaline. In many cases, it actually takes a much smaller volume of an acid to eliminate a larger quantity of a base.

The interaction of the water in the stomach is a more complicated discussion, but the basic chemistry of acids and bases is not.

Antioxidants have received massive amounts of attention in the last few years. You’ll find them mentioned on magazine covers in the checkout aisle, quantified on food/drink labels and discussed on shows like Oprah and the Food Network. Each year also seems to bring a hot new faddish version to the market. A single ingredient or supplement that can prevent aging and change your life. From Goji berries, to CoQ10 to 2016’s version of Turmeric.

It’s hard to keep up and know what to do.

But for all their attention, few know what they do or why we need them. To understand that (and in order to stop chasing fads), we have to look at what they are counteracting.

What is Oxidation?

By definition, anti is the opposite. So anti-oxidant, is the opposite of oxidation. If you’ve seen fruit turn brown or the patio furniture and an old Chevy pickup rusting, you’ve seen oxidation. Fruit goes from firm to mushy, metal from strong to brittle.

You also see it with cleaning products like oxy-clean which leverage oxidation’s destruction ability to clean germs in kitchens and bathrooms or stains on clothes and carpet. It the case of the patio furniture, oxidation is a bad thing. When you want to remove the grass stains from you kids jeans, it’s a blessing.

Chemically, oxidation occurs when electrons are taken from one substance (cell, compound, element, etc) by another. In the image to the left, compound A is oxidized by compound B, which is known as the reducer. When the electron is removed, it causes the oxidized substance to become unstable, unbalanced and in many cases, will force it to combine with something else to become a new substance all together.

But oxidation doesn’t just occur where we can see it. It also happens internally and biologically.

Oxidation in the Body

Oxidation in the body is a vital process and not all oxidizers are harmful. It’s not as simple as dividing up oxidizers on one side and reducers on the other calling one bad and the other good. We actually need oxidation to maintain a balance across countless biological reactions and functions.

We’ll cover the positive aspects later, for now let’s focus on the negative side.

Damage in the body is done by a small subset of things called Free Radicals, also known as Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). They all contain oxygen (as the name suggests) and are formed as a natural byproduct of the normal metabolism of oxygen.

This is incredibly important to understand. Oxidants are a normal part of living. In fact, things like exercising can increase the level of oxidation in the body because we are using more oxygen via respiration. If you’re going to increase your aerobic activity, you need to also increase your antioxidant consumption.

ROSs all have a one-track mind because of their electrical imbalance. They are focused on stealing electrons from any nearby location to solve this imbalance. The substances suffering the theft are otherwise healthy and happy. When this theft occurs, it alters the structure or function of the previously healthy substance. DNA can be damaged, cell membranes can become ineffective resulting in a sick or diseased cell and it often creates chain reaction of thefts. A reaction which leads to quicker aging, more inflammation, increased bouts of sickness, etc.

It’s now known as Oxidative Stress and if that stress is not managed or the body is unable to keep up, oxidative damage piles up and becomes the root cause many diseases and symptoms of aging.

The only way to tip the scale back into our favor is to stop the oxidation. Which is where Antioxidants come into play.

Now that we understand what oxidation is and the harm it can do, we need to look at ways to slow down and/or prevent its damage. To do that, we need to look at antioxidants. If you’ve done any research into this subject, or just heard it discussed, you know it can get very technical very quick. We’re going to try and make this as simple to understand and easy to implement as possible.

Types

There are many ways to categorize and classify antioxidants, but the easiest way to think about them (and more importantly utilize them) are in 2 broad categories. The technical terms are Endogenous and Exogenous. Those created inside the body and those we must consume from external sources.

The internal, or Endogenous variety, are mostly enzymes. Like superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, CoQ10 and catalases. To create them, the body needs things like iron, copper, magnesium, selenium and zinc. It obtains those cofactors from what we eat, drink and supplement with. Therefore, it’s important to choose foods as nutrient rich as possible and if you are going to use supplements, use the ones that are whole food in nature, not just single ingredients.

The exogenous, or external, antioxidants are vitamins (i.e. C, A, E, K), folic acid, beta carotene, etc as well as phytochemicals like carotenoids, flavonoids and resveratrol. Like the cofactors above, they come from the food, drinks and supplement we consume. However, unlike the cofactors, these come ready to fight and are not used as building materials to create other antioxidants.

How do they work?

Staying in those two broad categories, internal and external, also helps delineate how the antioxidants function. All antioxidants ultimately do the same thing. They freely give/donate their electrons to the oxidants, to keep the oxidants from stealing the electrons they crave from other biologically vital locations. Like our cells, organs, tissue, DNA, etc.

The difference in function is not a matter of how so much as where.

The enzymatic and internal antioxidants target the free radical oxidants themselves. They are much larger than the external and typically absorb the attacking oxidants, converting them into harmless hydrogen peroxide and finally into water that is ultimately flushed from our systems. Sort of like falling on a grenade.

The external antioxidants are much smaller and operate in a scavenging mode. They are more offensive than defensive and operate by interjecting themselves into free radical chain reactions that if left alone would otherwise compound, worsen and create in serious oxidative stress and damage. They perform a first sweep which keeps our more vital and difficult to create internal antioxidants from being depleted faster than we can make them.

A Balanced Approach

For most areas of life, we function best when balanced. Biologically, our body is the same way. We need to maintain good nutrition so our internal antioxidants have the necessary nutrients to pull from when needed. We also need good exercise to create the oxidation levels that trigger our body’s natural antioxidant system. Lastly, we again need that nutritious, balanced diet to provide the external antioxidants. Without them, the body cannot keep up, we quickly become nutrient deficient and our body ages quicker, sickness increases and chronic conditions take hold.

We’ll detail how Vitev water helps keep you in balance in a future post.

That’s not something you’ll hear very often. Google “oxidants + good” and you’ll find most links lead to a pro-antioxidant article and ads for supplements will populate the page. Which is fine, antioxidants are good for you.

At least most of them. In moderation. If they are the right kind.

Confused? Let us explain.

How’d we get here?

The mainstream and traditional view of oxidation (at least within medicine) goes back to 1956 when British scholar Denham Harman published his Free Radical Theory of Aging. The gist of his theory was that at the root of aging was the tissue damage and disease cause by free radicals. It then followed that in order to slow aging and disease, all that was needed was an increase in antioxidant consumption. Simply overwhelm the bad with the good and all would be fixed.

But it didn’t work that way. Studies and experiments which attempted to confirm this solution didn’t always pan out, particularly if there was only one 1 antioxidant used and especially if it was in-vitro. This has resulted in antioxidants being seen either negatively or at a minimum ignored by many in traditional medicine.

Because the solution didn’t work, serious doubt was then applied to the problem or cause as well. Which isn’t exactly logical, or even good science. Fortunately, since the early 1990s, the concept known as oxidative stress has gained significant credibility as confirmation of oxidative damage has been proven over and over. It’s now difficult to find someone who doesn’t believe free radicals harm our overall health.

The confusion and push-back comes in how to fight those radicals.

Redox Balance System

Within the last few years, it’s become more apparent that our bodies balance oxidants and antioxidants. They function together, almost like a network where one supports the other. Think of it as yin-yang. In order to have oxidants, you have to have reducers. The oxidants take the electrons that the reducers give.

Too much of one will force the other side out of balance. Very much like the way our body balances it’s pH levels.

If you’ve read the article on antioxidants, then you’ll remember there are 2 kinds of antioxidants. Those we consume from outside sources and those made internally. The body actually needs the oxidants to act like a trigger and force the creation of those internal reducers.

Then to close that loop and rebalance the system, some of those internal reducers are the only antioxidants that work to negate the advance of harmful oxidants. We need something that has been categorized as “bad” to create something “good” in order to stop another “bad”. If that doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t matter how much we flood the body with external antioxidants, we don’t see the improvement.

Which is why those experiments mentioned above didn’t work as hoped. Adding antioxidants into a test tube of radicals waiting for them to do their thing never happened because they were the wrong antioxidants.

What else do oxidants do?

The percentage of oxidants that are harmful is actually a fairly small percentage compared to the total overall amount in our bodies at any given time. The majority of oxidants fall into 2 categories.

The first are called signal molecule. Things like nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide. They are only harmful in very, very high concentrations or if they get converted into the harmful variety. When functioning correctly, they tell other cells how to operate. Do they need to up their immunity reaction? Like inflammation or a fever to fight infection. Or maybe they need to start repairing and rebuilding tissue. Maybe they just need to stay in homeostasis and not change anything.

Without being told what to do, the cells won’t perform correctly. From an oxidation perspective, if this process is interfered with by too many antioxidants, long term harm can result.

The second category aren’t signal molecules, but they aren’t harmful either. If fact, the verdict is still out on what exactly they are doing. Which if we don’t know, we probably don’t want to mess with either. So again, let’s not over do it with reducers that might impact whatever function they are performing.

Final thoughts

There are two important takeaways.

First, stay in balance. Don’t ignore antioxidants, but don’t look at them as a miracle we can overdose on to fix all of our problems. For most of us, that means eat a well-rounded, nutrient rich, whole food diet. If we are doing that, we probably don’t need a bunch of vitamin C pills.

Secondly, and this is a question you might already have thought of, is there a way you can selectively target the harmful oxidants while leaving the good ones alone.

Well yes, yes there is. Which is one of the factors that make our water so beneficial. It does exactly that. We’ll explain how in a future post.

The alkaline water industry is filled with words like “miracle” and “magic” to sell the water’s benefits. Many people notice an instant improvement in their health when they start drinking (the right) alkaline water, which is why the industry has experienced explosive growth in North America. But why do they feel better?

Many factors have been used to support these claims, such as the high pH and micro-clustering of water molecules. We’re here to separate the facts from these fictions.

The scientifically true reason is that some alkaline waters contain molecular hydrogen (H₂) – nature’s most potent antioxidant. Scientific research shows that H₂ provides considerable therapeutic health effects. In fact, over 700 scientific studies & reviews indicate that H₂ has a highly beneficial impact in over 170 human disease models.

Antioxidants protect the body from Free Radicals, and are the key to preventing Oxidative Stress. Oxidative Stress is linked to health conditions like diabetes, arthritis, chronic inflammation, Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, obesity, and many more.

Free Radicals, Oxidative Stress, Antioxidants, Molecular Hydrogen – what are they exactly? How do they affect our health? If you’re like us, you want to know why H₂ is so beneficial to our health, and you can learn that right now.

What are Free Radicals?

Simply put, Free Radicals are unstable molecules that are missing an electron. They are highly reactive, and readily “attack” & “steal” electrons from other molecules. This process of Free Radicals attacking other molecules in our cells is called oxidation. If you’ve ever seen a piece of brown fruit that’s gone bad, it became that way through oxidation.

Free Radicals are formed within the mitochondria (energy center) of all human cells as a by-product of metabolism. Free Radicals are always being produced in our cells due to natural lifestyle and environmental factors; even breathing oxygen contributes to their formation. In fact, up to 5% of the oxygen we breathe is converted into harmful Free Radicals.

Alarmingly, each cell actually takes 10,000 “hits” each day from Free Radicals (chemical reactions where Free Radicals oxidize the cell). How do we counter these cell-damaging Free Radicals?

Why we need Antioxidants

Antioxidants are so named because they prevent cell-oxidation by Free Radicals. Free Radicals are unstable & highly reactive, so they naturally “steal” electrons from our cells to become stable. Antioxidants protect against this damaging oxidation by “donating” electrons to Free Radicals to stabilize them. This process neutralizes the Free Radical so that it is no longer a threat. Free Radicals vs. Antioxidants – where does the endless battle between them lead us?

Oxidative Stress – the natural aging process?

Remember the reference to a piece of fruit gone bad? Our cells age through oxidation in the same fashion. Oxidative Stress occurs when there is an imbalance between Free Radicals & Antioxidants. Our cells produce Antioxidants to counter the Free Radicals, however this process become significantly less effective as we get older. The waning effectiveness of cells’ natural Antioxidants allows Free Radicals to cause more Oxidative Stress damage with age. Imagine this occurring in the trillions of cells in the body every day, worsening as we age. Awareness of the impact of Oxidative Stress is rapidly growing within scientific & medical communities, as outlined in many scientific research studies and journals.

Molecular Hydrogen – or H₂ – is naturally added to water by every Vitev filtration system. H₂ is the most effective Antioxidant that exists in protecting against Oxidative Stress damage, and all the associated health issues that come with it.

When you drink fresh alkaline water, you’ll notice it feels better. It doesn’t sit in your stomach and make you feel full or sloshy. You’ll probably experience improved and more frequent bathroom activity. Athletes say they recover quicker, cramping and soreness is less. Once you drink it for a while, you’ll very quickly notice the difference if you are without if for very long. Tap and bottled just don’t do it for you.

The water gives every impression it’s more hydrating.

But why?

Micro-clustered and Structured

One of the most common answers given to why alkaline water is so beneficial is that it is structured differently than tap or bottled. That those waters have large clusters of 13-15 water molecules bonded together and because they are larger in size, have a harder time getting into the cell. Therefore, if the clusters can be made smaller, with 4-6 molecules being the magic number, the water travels into the cells quicker and hydration improves.

This is often illustrated via tea bag diffusion tests and cherry tomato soaks. The tea diffuses quicker in the higher pH water and the tomatoes seem to lose their waxy coating faster as well. In other instances, graphs from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance tests are shown to compare surface tensions. Lower surface tension again being explained as smaller clusters of water molecules.

But is that really the cause? Does hydration depend on cluster size? Are there other factors that matter?

Cellular Hydration Understanding

Science is never settled. There are always new theories, findings, studies, etc and one always builds on another. It’s constantly progressing. Old understandings give way to new data and more capable technology allows us to analyze and view details like never before.

With respect to hydration, the understanding of both extra and intra cellular hydration has grown steadily over the last 15 years. The most common narrative up into the early 2000s was that cells were hydrated via osmosis. Cellular membranes were porous and would allow fluid to seep in and out based on the mineral concentration of minerals in the water inside the cell versus the concentration of minerals on the outside.

This gave rise to an understanding of hyper-, hypo- and iso-tonic environments. Too high of external solute concentration (hyper-) and the cells are squashed. To low (hyper-) and they rupture. When there is a balance (isotonic) all is good and water flows as it’s supposed to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonicity

This process is what undergirds “electrolytes” and much of the sport drink marketing. Replenishing minerals, especially salts, are necessary to ensure water can pass across the membrane. It’s also why when one visits the ER for dehydration, they are given an IV of saline, not distilled (demineralized) water.

Electrolytes are needed for hydration.

But by the early 2000s, scientists started noticing some cells behaved differently. That their intracellular volume didn’t change the way the pure osmotic understanding of hydration predicted.

There was something else at work.

Nobel Prize

In 2003, Dr. Peter Agre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery and modeling of what are now known as Aquaporins. They are water channels within the cellular membrane that accelerate the osmotic process. Water doesn’t seep through evenly at all points across the membrane, the channels control the flow and accelerate how quickly water gets in and waste gets out.

They do so by aligning the molecules up single file and use electrical charge to pull the water in as well as push it out.

This is important because no matter how large the cluster of molecules is, it must be broken up into single molecules to reach the cell’s interior. There are mechanisms in the body to do so and those mechanisms might be helped by lessening the work they must do, but the idea that 6 molecules pass through the membrane better because it’s a smaller cluster than other waters is false.

Those who continue to use the micro-clustered or structured water narrative are about 15 years behind the times.

How this Idea Spread

The idea of micro-clustering got it’s start around the year 2000, very close to when electric water ionizer sales began in earnest in the US. Enagic was the biggest sponsor of this idea, but there were other small time operations that tagged along. Some had similar multi-level business models, some just leveraged Enagic’s work and sold less expensive systems.

MLMs like Enagic often get lumped into the “snake oil” sales discussions. But often this is less the products being sold and more about the people doing the selling.

Most training is done via conference calls or local meetings and it’s done by people who aren’t more educated in science, but they are better at sales and persuasion. They look for simple ideas to answer questions. Things that are easy to remember and push down the line.

They myth of micro-clustered water is the result of a flawed (or at least old idea) regarding hydration getting pushed from the top influencers and then flooding the downlines. Which built websites, wrote blogs, emailed recorded calls, etc.

It became a herd of cats.

A better hydration answer

A good starting point for explaining the better hydration qualities of alkaline water (by this we mean water made with an ionizer and consumed shortly thereafter) is to admit we don’t know everything. Some things we just can’t explain yet. We’ve noticed an interesting trend within the alkaline water industry over the few 7 years.

They tend to jump to the newest and flashiest thing quickly… often using it as the silver bullet explanation or reason for purchasing. We’ve watched it progress from pH to ORP to micro-clustering with the initial stages now beginning around molecular hydrogen. More on that later.

The 2nd point to stress is that hydration isn’t based on 1 factor. It’s a combination of mineral (electrolyte) concentration, electrical charge and how well other surrounding processes of the body are functioning.

It’s very possible the lighter feel and quicker stomach emptying rate is due to the higher pH level. Maybe it’s more due to some energetic frequencies which we know very little about. The tea diffusion tests and surface tension graphs can also be explained as simply due to a higher pH. The fancy graphs you often find are pulled from a paper that even attributes changes to pH!

At the end of the day, we’re OK admitting we don’t yet know what causes the water to be more hydrating. We trust science will someday tell us definitively, although that might be a long ways off as natural products like ours don’t get much attention or funding. Until then we are OK saying we don’t know why, we just know it does.

Other things are more easily proven and can have a more direct answer. But hydration is murkier and we don’t think we need to make it more so.

Just drink the water.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21739/

The most common way to test pH is with a test strip. They are cheap, easy and readily available, so when you first receive your ionizer or pickup some alkaline water at the store and want to test it, what do you grab?

pH strips.

You dip the strip in, wait a few seconds for the colors to change and immediately feel scammed. The water doesn’t measure as high as you expected. In some cases it can even show acidic.

So what’s going on?

Buffered vs. Unbuffered

To start with, we have to understand there are 2 kinds of solutions. The first is buffered. The human body is buffered, so is pool water and aquariums.

Buffered means there are mineral concentrations (buffering material) that matches and effects the pH level.

The human body needs actual alkaline minerals to negate acid. That’s why it’s important to eat nutrient and mineral rich foods.

Pools and aquariums need their pH and alkaline levels to be in sync otherwise there can be algae blooms, unsanitary conditions, floating fish and all kinds of other problems. The 2 properties are monitored regularly and can be adjusted using additives, salts, minerals, etc.

pH vs. Alkalinity

The second factor is to understand pH and alkalinity are not the same thing. Alkalinity is a measurement of the concentration of minerals in a solution (buffering material) while pH is measuring the hydrogen potential. Alkalinity requires a change in mineral content, pH can be increased by chemical reaction.

You can have water with high pH and low alkalinity as well as low pH and high alkalinity.

Unfortunately, these 2 properties are used interchangeably in the majority of marketing messaging and FAQ answers. Doing so has created all sorts of confusion.

Ultimately, the disconnect between what testing strips indicate vs. the drops is the difference between pH and alkalinity. The strips are measuring alkalinity and the drops pH.

Why this matters

As stated above, the body is a buffered system. It doesn’t want empty pH any more than it does empty calories. So you don’t want to be drinking a water that has a high pH and very little actual benefit to the body.

You want a water where the pH and alkaline levels are more closely aligned.

Here’s an example. The 2 pH strips on the left are leading brands of alkaline bottled water. Aquahydrate and Essential. The strip on the right is from the Vitev FLO+.

Notice the differences. Aquahydrate was very low, near a 4 “pH”. Essentia was much better around neutral and the Vitev a bit higher.

Each of them tested higher with pH drops, although Aquahydrate was lower than advertised here as well. When choosing a water, want you want to look for is a smaller gap between strips and drops, which indicates more buffering material and a better fit for what the body requires. You’ll even notice the body incorporates it easier and you won’t have to worry about feeling sick the first few days of drinking it. This is a major problem with the electric ionizers that often have a supercharged pH without the buffering material to support it. The pH levels crash quickly and your body doesn’t respond well to it either.

So if you have a new ionizer pinging 9.5 pH with drops and a 7.5 with strips, that’s not bad.

If you’re getting a 4 with the strips, it might be time to look for a new way to obtain your water.

Dehydration is tricky to determine. How much water we need day-to-day varies on the individual, their circumstance, where they live, how active they are, etc. Therefore, it’s difficult to determine how many people are dehydrated and how widespread the problem is across the population. We know from a recent CDC study that almost half of adults drink 4 or less glasses of water a day. 7% of which don’t even drink 1, which just seems crazy.

And dangerous.

Even those of us who make our livelihoods around drinking water sometimes find we’ve skipped a few glasses during the day. It’s easy to do.

But why is it a big deal and how much do we really need in a day? Both answers might surprise you.

Why is drinking water important?

To answer that question, we first have to understand that ⅔ of our body is water. Not prioritizing drinking what makes up the majority of us, can have major impacts across all of our body’s systems, organs and processes. Here’s a list of just some of the things water is responsible for.

• Transports nutrients/oxygen to cells
• Ensures adequate blood volume
• Protects against heat exhaustion
• Acts as insulation in the cold
• Regulates body temperature
• Cushions joints
• Suppresses appetite
• Assists in metabolizing stored fat
• Relieves fluid retention problems
• Reduces sodium buildup in the body
• Helps to maintain proper muscle tone
• Rids the body of waste and toxins
• Relieves constipation
• Helps convert food into energy
• Maintains strength and endurance
• Protects organs

Even what seems like a small decrease in water volume can have big impacts. Look at some of the things that can happen with just a 2-5% dehydration level. From the American Dietetic Association’s Complete Food & Nutrition Guide.

• 0-1% – Thirst
• 2-5% – Dry mouth, flushed skin, fatigue, headache, impaired physical and mental performance
• 6% – Increased body temperature, rate of breathing and pulse rate; dizziness; weakness
• 8% – Dizziness, increased weakness, labored breathing with exercise
• 10% – Muscle spasms, swollen tongue, delirium
• 11% – Poor blood circulation, failing kidney function

It doesn’t take long to get there either.

On the flip side, it doesn’t take long to improve in those areas either. But many of us don’t think of that when we want to improve how we feel. We think about what we eat or how little we exercise, rarely how much (and what) we are drinking.

When you not only increase the volume of your daily water intake, but the quality of that water, you’ll see quick improvements across the health spectrum.

How much do I need?

The honest answer is we don’t know. Which we think is the best way to answer this actually. There is a lot of disagreement about the “8 glasses a day” recommendation from a few years ago with some saying that’s too much and others not enough. How much is based on legit science and how much is influence by other factors, interests and lobbies is anyone’s guess.

So how do you know what you need to do? Simple, follow some basic guidelines and pay attention to your urine. No joke. It’s a great indicator for how well you are hydrating. Just watch the color. If it’s a dark yellow, you know you need more water. If it’s completely clear, you can slow down a bit. Maintain a lite yellow shade and you’re in the sweet spot.

As to the basic guidelines. Here are some suggestions.

1. Have a large glass as soon as you get up. It helps activate the body and it’s a quick way to flush toxins which have built up overnight.
2. If you’re a coffee drinker, have at least 1 glass for every cup of coffee. If it’s a big cup, drink the same volume of water.
3. Watch the weather. You’ll need more water when it’s hot and also when it’s cold and dry.
4. Drink a glass about 30 minutes before each meal. Doing so will suppress your appetite a bit and it is an easy way to schedule hydration.
5. If you are thirsty, drink more than you need to simply quench the thirst. Thirst isn’t the first indicator of dehydration and can even mean you are up to 2 cups behind what you need.
6. Exercise means more water. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends drinking approximately 16 oz water 2 hours before exercise and drinking 5-8 oz every 15-20 minutes during strenuous exercise.
7. Men need more than women. The National Research Council uses a sliding scale of 1 milliliter of water for every calorie burned and an 8 oz glass is 236 milliliters of water. So the average male, who burns about 2,900 calories daily, needs 2,900 milliliters, or about 12 cups, of water each day. The average woman is about 700 calories less than that, so they recommend 9 cups.
8. You can get water from what you eat and from non-water beverages (juices, soda, teas, etc), but use common sense. If you wouldn’t classify the food as nutritious, then it probably isn’t giving you much water either. If the drink is full of sugar (even the diet variety) or is a diuretic, it’s also not going to help.
9. Same goes for water that is full of chemicals or void of minerals. Don’t let a good thing (increasing your water intake), also be a bad thing (increase your intake of toxins).

We can help

Improving how you feel is easy. So is improving the quality of the water you drink. But we also understand there is lots of confusion and misinformation on the interwebs.

The most expensive way to hydrate every day is bottled water… and it’s not even close.

“Wait a second, isn’t bottled water supposed to be cheap?”

You’d be shocked how often we hear some variation of that. Sure, the thought of spending $1.00-$2.00 on a bottle of water seems cheap… until you do it over, and over, and over again. If you buy bottled water, this post is for you.

Bottled water is 300-2000x more expensive than tap water, according to the American Water Works Association. 64% of all bottled water sales in 2012 were spent on single 16.9oz (500 mL) bottles, with an average cost approaching $8.00 per gallon. (according to ConvergEx market data).

That’s a lot of money to be spending on water. The average person should ideally consume at least 2 liters (over half a gallon) of water each day. If someone were to only drink single 500 mL water bottles, the cost to stay hydrated would be at least $1500/year. (Which is probably why many people are chronically dehydrated – Who want’s to spend that much on water?)

Those figures haven’t stopped Americans from steadily purchasing large amounts of bottled water. Average consumption increased by 9.5% annually between 1976 and 2013, reaching a new height of over 10 billion gallons sold in 2013.

Convenience and health are often cited as the benefits for bottled water. We question how convenient it is to have to leave home to buy water, pay a high price for it, and then responsibly dispose of the wasteful bottles after.

Is bottled water really that healthy? The answer is a hard no. Most bottled water brands do the bare minimum to improve the water quality, and charge a ridiculously high price for the product.

We want more from our drinking water, and for less $$$. Every Vitev filtration system reduces tap water contaminants, adds natural minerals, and enhances the water with beneficial alkaline & antioxidant effects.

Even premium Vitev systems like the Flo+ and Maxx are much more affordable to own and use than buying bottled water. You’ll never spend more than $0.13 per liter on a Vitev system, and the water quality is unmatched.