However, there's virtually no good evidence to support such claims, and I warned people about drinking alkaline water on a regular basis over eight years ago. Molecular hydrogen, on the other hand, does have a number of health benefits, some of which mirror the claims made for alkaline water — and there's a really good reason for that.

So, here, I'll review these two types of waters, and the scientific support (or lack thereof) for each of them, and how the benefits of molecular hydrogen were inappropriately transferred over to alkaline water — primarily due to ignorance.

Alkaline water is water that has gone through electrolysis that separates it into alkaline and acid fractions. The theory behind alkaline water is that alkaline (ionized) water is a powerful antioxidant with surplus electrons that can "mop up" dangerous free radicals. As reported by Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian:3