Cure disease by...drinking water
Patient P.T.M, 60 years old, Soc Son, Hanoi, was admitted to the hospital in a state of exhaustion, weak limbs, vomiting for many days without stopping, vomiting gastric juice and bile. The patient was transferred to the Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital with a diagnosis of alkaline water poisoning, metabolic alkalosis, and hypokalemia.
According to the patient, due to many diseases of the stomach, duodenum, colon, thyroid tumor, numbness in hands and feet... when hearing the villagers spread the word about the address of the "water" that cures all diseases right in the area, she also went there and asked to be treated.
The treatment regimen is that the patient is not examined but only asked about the condition of the disease and is instructed to treat by drinking "water" taken from the filter every day, possibly adding a little salt to make it easier to drink and not eating anything. Drink at least about 5 - 6 liters of water a day, for about 10 - 15 days.
When asked about the cost of treatment, Ms. M said that there was no cost and she could drink water freely. The water purifier was a used Japanese machine (imported from Japan), and if the owner wanted to buy it, he would sell it. However, after less than 5 days of drinking water and fasting, Ms. M could not stand, started vomiting continuously, and had to be hospitalized for emergency care.
Previously, Bach Mai Hospital had received a group of patients who also used a type of water introduced as "alkaline water" to treat their illness. These 3 patients with kidney failure were undergoing periodic dialysis at Lai Chau General Hospital. They were introduced to stop dialysis and go to Thanh Oai to drink "water" in a manner not different from patient M in Soc Son. They drank 6 liters of water a day and fasted completely for 15-20 days. These patients only drank for about 2-3 days, then started to have difficulty breathing and fell into a coma and had to be taken to the emergency room.
Unscientific treatment
According to Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Anti-Poison Center, Bach Mai Hospital, drinking too much normal water such as filtered water or boiled water left to cool in 1 day, even in healthy people, is very dangerous, can cause harm to the body such as: edema, pulmonary edema, blood dilution, hyponatremia, cerebral edema, coma, convulsions and death, not to mention using large amounts of alkaline water/day.
The water that patient M drank tested to have a pH of 7.5; he drinks 5 - 6 liters per day. Drinking too much water also reduces the pH of gastric juice due to dilution. Meanwhile, the acidic environment of the stomach with a pH of 1.5 - 3.5 normally plays a role in protecting the body, destroying some of the disease-causing germs in food and drinks before they go deep into the digestive tract.
Drinking too much alkaline water, in addition to causing excess water as above, also changes the pH of the blood, causing metabolic alkalosis. This seems simple but is extremely dangerous and complicated. When drinking too much alkaline water, the body's pH increases, causing sensory disturbances, coma, low blood potassium leading to possible heart arrhythmia, paralysis, reduced activity of many enzymes, and even death.
