Canberra Skeptics Argos: June/July 2003

N.B. Keep the evening of Monday next (14th July) free (see below)


The next function: Monday 14th July


You should have already received a notice about the Wig and Pen night being transferred to 16 Humble Court, Kambah at 7.30 next Monday to enable a viewing of the great Water Divining DVD (it's a hoot!) This will be accompanied by the consumption of glühwein and pizzas. If not already a member of Canberra Skeptics now is your chance to get your annual subscription's worth in one hit!


Forthcoming events


The great homoeopathy debate.

Members of U3A will be aware next Tues (15th July) lunchtime (12.15-1.45pm) your Hon President will be confronting Stewart Ward, a homeopath, and Val Johnson (Executive Director, Complementary Health Care Council) on the topic of homoeopathy. Any skeptic able to make it to the Hughes Community Centre during their lunch break would be more than welcome in support. Mr Ward has requested the last word! "I would be much happier to speak last. The reason being that questions will be raised by Pete and Val that will need addressing. Pete I'm sure will mostly be talking about how Homoeopathy is scientifically impossible, and Val will be talking about the need for regulation. As popular thought will tend to lean towards Pete's point of view it would be easier for me to present a balanced overview of homoeopathy based on the concerns that he raises".


Answers in genesis

Steve Roberts via qskeptics has advised us that Answers in Genesis is coming to town. Their latest propaganda mentions that Dr Tas Walker's "Australian Science Festival" Tour includes a half-day seminar on Sat 16 Aug (2:30-9pm) Woden Valley Alliance Church, 81 Namatjira Dr, Waramanga. In addition, various church services are programmed for Science Festival week. Steve has suggested we invite Dr Walker to address the Convention. Unfortunately the light entertainment program for the Dinner has already been arranged.


News from the Committee

The Committee meets fortnightly and organization of the 2003 National Skeptics' Convention continues to be the main item on the agenda.

The Convention will be 22nd to 24th August - so why not register now (and get your friends to too)? Get your/your friends' kids/grandkids to register for the Young Skeptics and enter the cartoon competition.

The main themes are

Friday (22nd) afternoon Seeking the evidence for young Skeptics.

Friday evening. Open forum on alternative remedies

Saturday (23rd). It’s all in the mind you know!

Sunday (24th) morning. Getting the message across.

Sunday afternoon. The Planet and beyond.


The Programme and Registration form for the Convention have been mailed with the most recent the Skeptic and have been posted on the Convention Website (via the top right hand corner of the www.skeptics.com.au website home page).


The next meeting of the Committee will be on 14 July. Please contact me by email, or phone me or Vicki on 6296 4555 if there are any issues you want raised at the meeting, if you wish to be deleted from our mailing list or if you know of someone who might wish to be added to it.


The Canberra Skeptic - a voice from the past


Thanks to David Vernon for sending me copies of The Canberra Skeptic (which he edited) published in May 1987. David's father was involved in the Marasmus April Fool's Day hoax mentioned in the last Argos and thinks he knows who was involved in the sculpture's disappearance. I reproduce the Editorial from the first of these.


I attended a party the other night where I managed to get into a discussion with a creationist (those who believe in the literal translation of Genesis − and thus do not believe in evolution). There were a number of other people listening in and it appeared to me the creationist was sensing victory when he brought up the Puluxy River fossils and Barry Settlerfield's theory on the decaying speed of light. However, fortunately I am well versed in most of the creationist arguments and was able to systematically demolish his arguments. However I was not arguing to persuade the creationist that he was wrong but to convince those listening in that creationism is wrong. Perhaps I planted a seed of doubt in the creationist's mind (which incidentally I tend to back up with an onslaught of photocopies sent to his address), but my main target was those people who were ignorant of the arguments on both sides.


It is here that I see the Skeptics main task, not the conversion of the credulists (although this is a perfectly good long term goal), but the education of those who have not yet made up their minds or who are wavering towards one of the pseudo-sciences. It is here that school education is so important and it is why the creasionism/evolution battle is being so vehemently fought in Queensland and across the United States today. Do you know what is being taught in your child's science courses?


No, and with the current move towards a national school curriculum we must be ever vigilant. And this is why we must get the schools and schoolkids involved with the skeptics. To which end the Young Skeptics session on August 22nd as part of the National Science Festival, and the Sunday morning session at the Convention on 24th August.


Ramblings from the President: Magic Water - the stuff of life.


[This edition of the Argos is a composite. The close of the financial year and the need to prepare my house in Narrabundah for sale (it will feature on Saturday's Canberra Times front page − bottom right − for the next few weeks) resulted in no issue of the Argos in June.]


Apart from a lousy set of lower back genes, I inherited an Aeroswing from my late mother. As I hang suspended from my feet in a vertical position on this contraption my mind turned to the Argos − and to water. I was about to part with $55 of the green and crinkly to a very well spoken employee of Cool Pools in return for the information our swimming pool was leaking. Now this was not news to me. A first-class English and Australian State − and, I might add, HECS-free − education had enabled me to deduce this for myself. But having been advised by Mr Cool Pools to seal the liner around the skimmer box, I had spent the morning hanging over the side of the swimming pool thereby straining the worst of Mother Nature's lousy bioengineering experiments.


Osteoarthritis is the most common of joint disease. It starts in your 20's and 30's and eventually everybody has frank disease by their 70's. It's no consolation to learn that all groups of vertebrates both extinct (e.g. the dinosaurs) suffered, and extant suffer, from it − with rare exceptions. Those quick off the mark will no doubt nominate aquatic vertebrates such as fish, frogs, whales, porpoises as being free from osteoarthritis. After all, if one spends one's life weightless suspended in a dilute solution of homoeopathic remedies, one might expect to be free of this affliction. However you would be wrong. According to an impeccable source − my Merck Manual (16th ed, p1339) − the only mammals that fail to get osteoarthritis are bats and sloths. This is presumably because they spend much of their time hanging upside down. Whether the inventors of the Aeroswing were aware of this I do not know. But hanging from one's bootstraps certainly relieves the pressure on one's lumbar spondyls (Gr. sphondylos = vertebra). And as we will see, if you believe the purveyors of Unique Water, it ensures that one is more effectively relieved of carbon dioxide.


Now my problem is nothing compared with suffers of ankylosing spondylitis (morbid adhesion and inflammation of the spondyls) − a rheumatic condition of the spine resulting in recurrent back pain. It is three times more common in men than women, typically starts in the 20's/30's, has a genetic component and possibly is precipitated by exposure to an infectious agent with a composition similar to normal tissue components resulting in inflammatory reactions directed at the latter (autoimmunity). Typically, like many arthritic and other autoimmune conditions, it is episodic and as such is much favoured by the alternative remedy practitioners as one to treat. If you take the homoeopathic remedy, herbal tea, magic water and/or massage long enough, a remission will eventually occur (for no better reason than it was going to occur anyway) clearly proving the "treatment" works. I have a niece whose partner is a sufferer and consumes 2-3 litres of Unique Water daily in the firm belief it helps his condition. So what is this stuff?


Unique Water gained prominence following an article in the SMH Good Weekend 6 April 2002 and the media-hype that followed. Dr Russell Beckett, a veterinarian with a PhD in biochemical pathology, had been granted patents by the US and Australian Patents Offices in 2001 for a formulation of Unique Water which, it was asserted, slowed the ageing process and increased the length of life of humans and other mammals and could be used to treat all inflammatory and degenerative diseases. Peter Bowditch was quick to point out the weaknesses in the "science" behind this stuff (http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/uniquewater.htm).

Beckett received three nominations for the Bent Spoon award in 2002: in my view the Australian Patent Office should have been nominated too, but wasn't. A quick look at the Unique Water website is revealing.


It seems sheep around Braidwood with access to drinking water containing low levels of magnesium live longer than those that don't. Now magnesium deficiency in stock is not uncommon and would be known to veterinarians. But why is this so? Plants facing a hot summer and/or a cold winter tend to take stuff out of their leaves and store it in their roots, so animals grazing on dried out vegetation (and I don't mean hay, which is cut green) tend to go short of a few things. It is well known that - as long as they receive appropriate levels of trace elements and vitamins in their diet - the lives of experimental animals are significantly extended by near starvation. Maybe this explains why Beckett's sheep live longer (assuming it is not genetic, which has yet to be established).


Now magnesium deficiency in humans is supposed to be common (http://www.mgwater. com/content.shtml). Advocates of magnesium supplementation of the diet quote an old review by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1977) of more than 50 reports, from nine countries, indicating an inverse relationship between drinking water hardness and cardiovascular disease mortality. I do not know whether these reports took into account that soft water, especially if it contains dissolved carbon dioxide, solubilizes lead and copper pipes and whether cumulative heavy metal poisoning leads to cardiovascular disease. Hard water results in a protective deposit on such pipes.


Some individuals survive on total parenteral nutrition so their daily magnesium requirement is accurately known and is at most 400 mg per day. We have a varied diet, and all cells containing phosphorus compounds contain magnesium as a counter ion. Nuts, whole seeds, cheese, flesh, fresh vegetables, fruit and cows' milk have around 200, 100, 45, 25, 25, 15, 13 mg magnesium per 100g respectively. Interestingly human milk has only 4 mg/100g. Now rickets used to be rampant in Scotland, and it was not only because of lack of sunshine. The Scots had the habit of consuming large quantities of porridge which resulted in a calcium deficiency as oats contain much phytic acid which is an avid complexer of calcium and prevents its absorption from the gut. Assuming phytic acid is preferentially complexed with calcium, a plateful (200g) of rolled oats muesli containing chopped nuts and dried fruit, with yoghurt and milk, would in theory provide the daily allowance of dietary magnesium if all were absorbed. A diet of white bread, butter, strawberry jam, eggs and carbonated lolly water (containing 24, 2, 5, 11, 0 mg /100g respectively) would probably be magnesium deficient. But a 150g bar of almond nut (270 mg/100g) dark chocolate (292mg/100g) would be enough! Hooray for certain junk food.


Unique Water contains 125 mg of magnesium and 650 mg of bicarbonate per litre. These ingredients are supposed to alleviate inflammation (http://www.uniquewater.com.au). Cells produce carbon dioxide by breaking down sugars to yield energy. In addition protons are formed which are removed by reaction with oxygen with the production of water and lots of energy in specialised cellular organelles (mitochondria). Daily an adult produces 500 to 1000 grams (250 to 500 litres) of carbon dioxide much of which reacts with water to yield protons and bicarbonate ions. The latter are carried to the lungs, converted back to carbon dioxide, and exhaled


According to Beckett the excessive production of carbon dioxide and hence protons yields an acid environment within cells and mitochondria and this causes ageing. A mitochondrion has a radius of around 1 micrometer and hence a volume of 4/3 x 22/7 x 10-18 cubic meters or around 4 x 10-12 ml. Eighteen ml of water contains 0.62 x 1024 molecules. Assuming 70% of a mitochondrion is water, it will contain 0.7 x 0.62/18 x 1024 x 4 x 10-18 or around 100,000 molecules of water. At pH 7.0, one in 10,000,000 water molecules is ionised, at pH 6.0 one in 1,000,000 and at pH 5.0 one in 100,000. Thus at pH 5.0 a mitochondrion will contain just a single proton and at pH 4.0 just 10. Any free protons are rapidly converted to water by reaction with oxygen. The whole idea of acid production in mitochondria is thus a nonsense.


Beckett theorises that the longevity of animals is directly related to how efficient the species is at avoiding elevated tissue carbon dioxide levels. Starvation is just one way. Hanging upside down is another. Bats live 10 times longer than mice of equivalent size. According to Beckett this is because the former spend much of the day upside down. Their lungs, it seems, are relieved of carbon dioxide, which is heavier than air, by the help of gravity. I would have thought this would be largely achieved by breathing. The bowhead whale apparently lives two hundred years. The fact that whales and other diving mammals and birds accumulate very high tissue carbon dioxide levels during prolonged dives seems to have been conveniently overlooked by Beckett.


In the absence of oxygen, acid does accumulate in cells through energy production by anaerobic fermentation, which can lead to lactic acid accumulation in the tissues. [Evident as stiff muscles the morning after a bout of intense physical activity]. This also occurs during inflammatory processes, which actively involve acid production locally through the action of white blood cells. Where the pH drop in cells is sufficient, precipitation of their protein content can occur; this is occasionally seen in the living (leg muscles of marathon runners and cyclists) and always in the dead − where it causes rigor mortis. Beckett claims ingesting a few hundred mg of bicarbonate reverses acid accumulation in the tissues. He ignores the fact that stomach acid at around pH 1.0 converts all ingested bicarbonate to carbon dioxide, which is burped out, or if absorbed, exhaled. Any increase in blood carbon dioxide automatically stimulates the breathing reflexes to blow off any excess carbon dioxide and regulate the blood pH up for just a few seconds. A few hundred mg of ingested bicarbonate will thus have zero effect on tissue pH, or that at sites of inflammation. The pH drop in the latter is best controlled by reducing the activity of the accumulating white blood cells − for example with colchicine in gout or steroids in autoimmune disease. Maybe periodic bouts of heavy breathing can help − I must try it.


And where does magnesium get involved? According to Beckett it acts to transport bicarbonate ions into cells from the blood plasma. For every magnesium ion pumped into cells two bicarbonate ions enter too. And the latter react with all those nasty protons to give carbon dioxide and water. Beckett ignores the buffer effect. The carbon dioxide-bicarbonate equilibrium around pH 7.3 is capable of accommodating large fluctuations in proton or bicarbonate ion levels with very small changes in ultimate pH. His theory just does not hold water.


But what if you drink two litres of water a day − Unique or not? What effect does that have? Dehydration effectively increases the concentration in the body of nasties such as uric acid, which, in many ageing males and some females, is close to saturation in body fluids at 370 C and pH 7.3. Drop the pH a jot by local joint inflammation as a result of a bit of unaccustomed exercise or a strain, add a fall in local body temperature from wet or thin clothing, add a spot of dehydration from too much strong liquor or excessive sweating through exercise or overheating, add a reduced kidney clearance of uric acid through excessive lactic acid production from heavy exercise and/or alcohol consumption, add a bit of blood plasma uric acid overload through eating sweetbread and kidney pies washed down with strong liquor and what do you get? Uric acid crystallizes in the joints. This starts a more intense inflammation which causes a further pH drop which causes more uric acid precipitation and the whole thing gets agonisingly out of hand. So off to Epsom Spa to take the waters? No, stay at home and drink two litres a day of the stuff from the tap. And if you really believe magnesium and bicarbonate ions relieve inflammation, get a packet of sodium bicarbonate and one of Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) from Woolies and weave your own magic with water from the tap at a fraction of the cost of the "unique" stuff. As an alternative, Mylanta (containing 400mg magnesium hydroxide per 10ml), will have the bonus of relieving constipation as well.


I read the other day that kids teeth are starting to rot again − it seems because they drink bottled water lacking added fluoride. Sales of bottled water have skyrocketed in all affluent countries. And so have kitchen-based water filters. Why people in Australia waste money on plastic-coated water is beyond me. In the old days one could ask for a glass of water, and that in the taps meets some pretty tough standards. Bottled water is partly a fashion statement, partly a purely commercial exercise in bars and restaurants and partly because people believe it is safer. In fact, unlike tap water, unless sterilized and bottled aseptically, bottled water is loaded with bacteria. Manufacturers tend to filter the water to remove grit, protozoan cysts and bacteria, but their filters do not remove viruses, and bacteria get into the water and/or bottles during processing. And that includes the homoeopathetic remedies.


In a former life I used to perform experiments to demonstrate this to students of pharmacy. Water taken directly from the condenser of a glass still to a sterilized glass beaker and left unsealed on the bench overnight was routinely found to be contaminated with 10,000 bacteria per ml by the following day. The bacteria live off the minerals leached from the glass and organic material entering from the atmosphere or passed over by steam-distillation. The problem of steam-distilled pine tree resins contaminating distilled tap water (derived from the Cotter Dam) that was used for tissue culture in the Microbiology Department of the JCSMR in the mid-1960s will be familiar to a few Canberra residents - especially those whose vertebrate cell cultures simply died as a result.


The Chinese long ago learned that heating water with a bactericide (namely tannin) rendered it safe as well as mildly stimulating; they called the product t'e or ch'a. Now if you do go to China you are well advised to drink fresh tea, or at least water from the hot tap (though these days, when hot water tanks are held at 50oC, this could be unwise as many bugs survive − and some even flourish − at this temperature; those flourishing are unlikely to prove a health hazard for you, but will definitely shorten the life of your plumbing, the copper/zinc/iron version that is). If you drink bottled water, insist on it being carbonated. Why? Because, my friends, the pH of water saturated with carbon dioxide is around 3.5 and no bacterial pathogen can grow at this pH, and not too many survive. No doubt this is why beer, champagne and certain fizzy mineral waters have acquired their reputation for palatability.


Unfortunately many viruses infecting the gut are designed to survive the pH of the stomach and so survive in carbonated beverages. Many years ago I read a report in the journal Nature that red wine knocked off poliovirus. Clearly the French had worked out that adding some of the red stuff to water was a Good Thing. The acid, tannins and alcohol in red wine do nasty things to bugs. However Pasteur did show that the wrong sort of bacteria in wine could make it go off - although none of these would be a threat to anything other than your palate. Poliovirus isn't around much any more, though hepatitis A virus, Norwalk virus, rotaviruses and now SARS virus still are. What affect red wine has on these I do not know. Better stick to fresh tea. And there is a bonus − as it is high in fluoride, tea is good for the teeth.