the blarney

 the science

When Crystal Energy is added to water it makes it "The Most Biologically Active Water in The World", according to Dr. Patrick Flanagan.

An utterly meaningless statement. A solution of sodium cyanide would be an even more "biologically active" water!

When Crystal Energy made with Flanagan Microclusters added to water --- water molecules which are clumped together and inactive become separate and active and charged so they can easily pass through a cell wall carrying nutrients, removing wastes and rehydrating the cell itself. (usvitamin.com)

This "clumping" (which chemists call "hydrogen bonding" is weak and transient, and in no way renders the H₂O molecules "inactive". Passage of these molecules through cell membranes is well understood and requires no help from patent nostrums. And contrary to the implication here, nutrients and wastes are not "carried" by water, but by special trans-membrane processes that involve water only indirectly.

Crystal Energy is a catalytic liquid which, when added to other liquids, enhances their solvency power by altering their molecular structure.

Use Crystal Energy concentrate... in all drinking water... in other beverages, especially juice and tea.... to rinse vegetables and fruits... to cut cooking time of many foods... on cut flowers to maintain their freshness... to mist house plants... to catalyze your bath or spa water... to wet your toothbrush, add to your favorite mouthwash... to prevent nicks while shaving...mixed with your shampoo and other hair care products.

It is highly unlikely that any chemist would consider this a "catalyst". Any chemical substance that is capable of "altering.. molecular structure" of a liquid must be pretty powerfull stuff— not something I would want to drink!

Cut cooking time of foods? Prevent nicks while shaving? C'mon... is there any evidence for any of this?

Microcluster® minerals are unique in that they have a very high electrical charge (zeta potential) and are small enough to be easily utilized. The charge on ordinary colloidal minerals is not very high or very stable, so ordinary low energy colloidal minerals have little or no effect on the structure of water. Colloids that are found in dead sea beds and mineral clays are devoid of zeta potential and are too large to be used by the living system. Zeta Potential represents a basic Law of Nature. It plays a vital role in all forms of plant and animal life. It is the force that maintains the discreetness of the billions of circulating cells that nourish the organism.

First, some definitions: colloids are small particles (such as the butterfat droplets in milk) which tend to be surrounded by an "electric double layer" of adsorbed molecules or ions. The zeta potential refers to the electrical properties of this layer which, by causing like-charged particles to repel each other, keeps them from settling out. So far, so good. What is bunk, however, is the implication that minerals and nutrients are taken up in colloidal form, of that the local water structure (which is altered near any charged particle) is of any significance. Contrary to what they say, colloidal minerals are too large to be utilizized.

When Flanagan Microclusters® are diluted for drinking, they have such powerful surface energies that the resulting drop in surface tension is remarkable. In distilled water, the immediate drop is between 55 to 65 dynes per centimeter.

Surface tension is a measure of the tendency of liquids to form drops, as opposed to spreading out on a surface. The unusually high surface tension of water (72 dynes/cm at 25°C) reflects the relatively strong attractive forces between H₂O molecules. Almost anything you dissolve in water will reduce its surface tension, so all these numbers tell us is that the Flanagan concentrate actually does add something to the water. If you want a still lower surface tension, you can always add a detergent!

Hunza water¹ has a surface tension of 68, this means that water treated with Crystal Energy® concentrate has an even lower surface tension and a greater Zeta Potential².

¹ The people of the Hunza Valley in Northern Pakistan are said to enjoy extradorinarily long lifetimes, so anything connected with them— their food, water, or maybe even the air they breathe— is taken as endorsement of hundreds of alternative health Web sites. Apparently, however, this is mostly myth. See this informative article on the Hunza.

² Nonsense! All this means is that the Flanagan water is more impure. Zeta potential has nothing to do with this.

Assimilation of nutrients and vitamins from our foods is largely dependent on our body's ability to wet and process nutrients in the digestive system. The ability to wet foods depends on the zeta potential and surface tension of our digestive fluids. Crystal Energy® concentrate can help you to get the most from your food and vitamin supplements.

More Flanagan blarney. The only foods components that are not already been wetted by the time they have been swallowed are fats, and these are processed in the intestine after having been emulsified by the detergent-like action of the bile. Again, the magical "zeta potential" has nothing to do with this. The idea that anyone in normal health requires a supplement of this kind in order to digest food properly is errant nonsense and pure commercial hype.

The University of Minnesota examined the colloids present in Crystal Energy® concentrate with an Electron Microscope. These tests revealed that Flanagan Microcluster colloids are spherical in shape and average about 5 nanometers in diameter. This means that each particle is about 12 atoms in diameter!

So what? Your cells will only take up the mineral elements it needs on an atom-by-atom (one ion at a time) basis.

Found at {this site}:

In water, minute cluster colloids exhibit a property known as "hydrophobic hydration".¹ This occurs as water molecules form cage like structures around suspended particles. The resemble various ployhedrea, the smallest being the dodecaheron. Interestingly, the tetrahedron, of which structure the single water molecule has, is a root shape of which all the other symmetrical solids can be unfolded out of. These cage structures contain the hydrophobic particles within, thereby ordering water so much that Gibbs Free Energy, G, is increased significantly.² Free energy represents the amount of energy available in a system to do work. J. willard Gibbs developed the formula for free energy, used extensively in Chemistry: G = U –TS + pV, where U represents internal energy of heat content, S is entropy, T is time, p is pressure and V is volume.³

Well, they have this half-right, which also means half-wrong!

¹ All small non-polar molcules show this effect; I don't know whether it occurs with colloids, but I doubt it.

² The fact that G increases is the reason that these substances are not very soluble in the first place; this hardly seems like an efficient way to get mineral ions into the body!

³ Whoever wrote this gets an "F" in thermodynamics. T is the temperature, not the time, stupid! And the pV part applies only to gases!

Increases cellular hydration; may decrease water’s surface tension, enabling more water, and the nutrients dissolved in water, to enter cells and become available for use by the body.

What do they mean "may"? It either does or it does not. No matter, surface tension has nothing to do with passage of water into cells anyway.

Microhydrin is a mineral (silica, potassium, magnesium) formed into extremely small negatively charged colloids (nanocolloids) that have been saturated with hydrogen.¹ ... Its function is to provide literally trillions of hydrogen anions² capable of donating electrons into body fluids. Electrons ...are abundantly available in organically grown raw vegetables, fruits, and grains, but are deficient in our modern diet of over-cooked, acidic, or highly oxidized foods, beverages, and drinking water.³ [link here]

¹ Hydrogen gas is only slighly soluble in most substances that you would want to take into your body.

² How H₂ gets changed into H^— ions is not explained, and I don't believe it happens.

³ The implication that organic foods are less acidic or more oxidized is unfounded, as is the idea that a reducing agent (electron source) can restore or improve them.

Microhydrin is the most potent free radical fighter available anywhere today. It allows our internal environment to maintain a higher level of electrical conductivity, which is critical for healthy cell functioning. [from the Microhydrin site]

Electrical conductivity is important only in the indirect sense that it depends on the ionic strength (charge concentrations) of intracellular fluids, which must be maintained within rather narrow limits by various transport processes. The implication that "higher" conductivity is desirable is silly.

When Microhydrin comes in contact with stomach fluids, the formulation time-releases negatively charged hydrogen ions.¹ These ions cause a reduction in oxidation potential (Redox) in the body², helping to create an internal environment that simultaneously promotes healthy cell growth and function, and discourages the proliferation of undesirable organisms, which prefer more acidic (less alkaline) conditions³ inside the body.

¹ These are called hydride ions H^–. Any release of such ions would decompose water into hydrogen gas (H₂) and hydroxide ions (OH^–); it would be equivalent to introducing lye into your body. Do you really want this?

² The "redox potential of the body" is not a definable quantity, since it varies greatly from place to place. In any event, it is the net result of many competing processes, and any significant change in its value would seriously disrupt most metabolic processes.

³ The pH of intercellular and intracellular fluids is similarly controlled to within quite narrow limits. Any significant change in blood pH would be fatal.