Alkaline Water During Pregnancy Increases Baby Weight But May Harm Heart
- Authors
- Toshi Watanabe, In-Jen Pan, Youichi Fukuda, Eiji Murasugi, Hiroshi Kamata, Kazuhiro Uwatoko
- Journal
- The Journal of Toxicological Sciences
- Year
- 1999
- DOI
- 10.2131/jts.23.5_365
- Study Type
- Rat
- Outcome
- Neutral
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- Japan
- Health Condition
- Pregnancy Complications
- Body System
- Cardiovascular
TL;DR
Drinking alkaline ionized water during pregnancy and nursing led to unusually high body weight in rat offspring, possibly due to higher calcium levels passed from mother to babies.
Key Finding
Offspring of rats given alkaline ionized water gained significantly more body weight than offspring given regular tap water, despite no differences in milk production or consumption between the two groups.
Summary
Researchers gave pregnant and nursing rats alkaline ionized water (water treated to increase alkalinity and mineral content) instead of regular tap water to see how it affected milk production and offspring growth. Male and female offspring of mothers drinking alkaline ionized water gained weight faster than offspring of mothers drinking tap water, but surprisingly, the mothers' milk production and the amount of milk the babies drank were the same in both groups. The researchers suspect that higher calcium levels in the alkaline water, which passed to babies either before birth through the placenta or after birth through milk, caused the extra weight gain.
Practical Takeaway
This animal study suggests that alkaline ionized water's higher mineral content (specifically calcium) may affect fetal and infant growth, but the findings are limited to rats and raise concerns—the study also noted that accelerated growth was linked to heart damage in male offspring. These results do not support using alkaline ionized water during pregnancy or nursing without further human research and medical guidance.
Abstract
The authors previously reported that male offspring of mothers rats given alkaline ionized water (AKW) showed a significantly higher body weight by day 14 after birth than did offspring of mother rats given tap water (TPW); furthermore, marked myocardial necrosis and fibrosis were observed particularly in the former male offspring at the age of 15 weeks. In the present experiment we looked for differences in bioparameters, namely the milk yield of mothers and suckled milk volume of the offspring, between the AKW- and the TPW-treated groups in order to reveal the factors which cause the unusual body weight gain in the offspring. Even though we were able to repeat our previous observation (the body weight of the male offspring of the AKW group increased significantly more by day 14 and 20 after birth and of the female by day 20 after birth than did that of the TPW group (p < 0.05), no significant difference was noted in any of the bioparameters, including those related to milk production and consumption. It is thus suspected that the water-hydrated cation, which was transferred either to the fetus through the placenta or to the offspring through the milk, might be the cause of the unusual body weight increase. Since calcium plays an important role in skeletal formation, it is tentatively concluded that the higher calcium concentration of AKW enriched the mother, serum calcium which was transferred to the fetus through the placenta and to the offspring through the milk.