# Penta Water - Can someone tell me if this is a scam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2001, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298 "2001-06-19T05:07:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/21 "2001-06-20T05:31:36Z")
People who’ve been in Covert Ops shouldn’t write letters while high on fast-penta.  —Ekaterin ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/22 "2001-06-20T06:02:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crafter\_Man \* > \*\*For the record, I do not believe in the reported “healing properties” of this product. But I did email their web site, and asked them what they thought of these comments. Here’s the reply I received: > > * * * > > Crafter\_Man: > > \ > > Please note that the company makes no medical claims about the product. However, the incredible amounts of testimonials that have poured in about this product (including mine and members of my family) cannot be overlooked.\*\* Indeed they can. Check out the skeptic’s dictionary entry on [testimonials](http://www.skepdic.com/testimon.html). Do you have any real studies on the effectiveness of this product. I doubt it since the company makes no offical medical claims. And yet you recommend it to sick people. Why? ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/23 "2001-06-20T12:21:28Z")
People! Purity of Essence! These are the only people who are brave enough not to buy into the water fluoridation conspiracy! Give them our money! ---
**Author:** ![Cap\_n\_Crude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Cap\_n\_Crude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cap_n_Crude)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/24 "2001-06-20T17:57:12Z")
That was the sound of my faith in humanity flash-evaporating. > [@](#): > > Here are the two types of people who are perfect candidates for the water: > 1. Athletes, and people who are in tune with their bodies. > 2. People who are sick. So basically, the product is recommended for: 1. People who are healthy. 2. People who are sick And, since “sick” is not defined, it opens the doors for any hypochondriac who thinks there’s something wrong with them that the doctors just haven’t diagnosed. > [@](#): > > If you are not physically active and are not sick, you will probably not notice any difference by using this water, other than maybe better skin. And this would only be the result of consistent usage. Wow. Just like what happens when you drink regular water. With consistent usage. Don’t even get me started on the high osmotic drive and tetrahedral clusters. The very nature of osmosis is that no energy is expended to cause it to happen – that’s why it’s called _passive transport._ Something either can pass through a selectively permeable membrane or it can’t. Red\_dragon 60 wrote: > [@](#): > > People! Purity of Essence! These are the only people who are brave enough not to buy into the water fluoridation conspiracy! Give them our money! Thank you, O Great Wyrm. I was waiting for somebody to get to this. Gen. Ripper is finally vindicated! And let’s not jump too hard on shelbo, people. This fine Doper is clearly skeptical enough to couch the question the way it was, and bring this crap to our attention. ---
**Author:** ![shelbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@shelbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shelbo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/25 "2001-06-20T18:10:27Z")
Thank you Capt’n. I was almost positive that H2O clusters did not exist, but, for a second I doubted myself. (Maybe it was the whole surface tension thing - that and the fact that my father-in-law actually swears by the stuff). I knew I should have taken more chemistry! ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/26 "2001-06-20T18:24:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crafter\_Man \* > Also, note that 5 world records were broken at last year’s summer Olympics by athletes who use Penta Water exclusively! Wow? Really? Think of all the way you use water in a day. They bathed in it? Washed their clothes in it? Washed their cars with it? That’s a lot of Pentawater. > [@](#): > > You can talk about it all you want, but if you haven’t tried it, you’ll never know. Whoa. I never thought about it that way. I never drank water while standing on my head before. Maybe if I only drink water while standing on my head, my acne will clear up, I’ll be more alert and my memory will improve, and persons of the opposite sex will find me more attractive and interesting! Until I try, I’ll never know! ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/27 "2001-06-20T21:27:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crafter\_Man \* > \*\*\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ > > Crafter\_Man: > > I do not work for Bio-Hydration Labs (the company who invented the product), but I am a user of the product, and a testimony to the product’s success. > \*\* Then why the hell are you answering the company’s e-mail? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/28 "2001-06-20T21:36:41Z")
**shelbo** , as you hang around here more you will learn to apply the Post Office’s method of scam detection: > [@](#): > > If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. ---
**Author:** ![quixotic78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3ab097/32.png) [@quixotic78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quixotic78)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/29 "2001-06-20T22:37:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by red\_dragon60 \* > \*\*Well, water is already in a pseudo-tetrahedral shape. The energy levels of water in subshells contains two lone pairs. These are highly repulsive. When you have a central-bonded O (which must bond twice) and two H, along with two lone pairs, you have a tetrahedral shape. However, the lone pairs push the H away, leaving bond angles of \<109.5 degrees. So basically, they are selling you the same water as usual. \*\* (Chemist in training weighing in here, 2 years from a Ph.D.) What **red\_dragon60** said is pretty much correct, although I probably would have phrased it differently. Yes, I guess you could look at water as pseudo-tetrahedral, if you count the lone pairs as legs. Most often, you don’t count the lone pairs as legs, and you would call water’s geometry “bent” or “angular” (looks like a \> ). When this product talks about tetrahedral, they’re not talking about one water molecule; they’re talking about the arrangement in space of more than one water molecule. I can’t quite nail down why they call it Penta Water, as a tetrahedron has four corners. Maybe the cluster is a tetrahedron of water, with one water inside the tetrahedron? Meh, beats me. Anyways, back to the individual water molecules for a second. Oxygen has more electrons around it than do either of the hydrogens. Thus, we can view the oxygen as being partially negative (electrons being negatively charged particles), and each hydrogen partially positive. So, if \> is a water molecule, we can look at it as + \> - (the point has oxygen, and so is slightly negative). We can say that water is polar, because it has a negative pole and a positive pole. The polarity of water allows for something called Hydrogen Bonding. In short, the positive pole of one water can “bond” to the negative pole of a different water molecule. It’d look something like \> \> (actually, it’s best if you shift the second \> up a tad. Doesn’t really matter). When you form this hydrogen bond, you stabilize the system. Here’s the kicker, though: no one really knows what the best number of waters to form a hydrogen bonded “cluster” is. In other words, forming \> \> is good. Forming \> \> \> is even better. You can go three-dimensions and form clusters of even more waters, arranged in cages (looks something like a buckyball). Chemists and physicists have looked at water for a long time with all sorts of high-tech toys. They have applied their most powerful computational tools. Most often, the answers contradict each other. One calculation says, “Woah, having 5 waters arranged in a certain way is the most stable.” An experimental chemist shines a laser on water and finds out that water doesn’t like getting together into more than groups of 2. I have a reference at work, if anyone wants a review article on specifics. What the hell does this have to do with anything? Well, you’ll notice that when I first mentioned hydrogen bond, I put the word “bond” in quotation marks. It’s a pretty weak bond, and we only call it a bond because it’s convenient. So, even if this company DID develop a method to get water to take tetrahedral cluster form… it ain’t sticking around at room temperature! I surmise that someone read a review article, said, “Heh, no one really knows what water likes to do,” and decided to capitalize on it. Bastards. Sorry for boring everyone, Quix ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/30 "2001-06-20T22:47:13Z")
Y’know, if you are sick or have health problems there are three things that can happen. You can get better, you can stay the same, or you can get worse. If you are a purveyor of quack medicine, there are three responses to those three outcomes. You get better? “See? My stuff cured you!” You stay the same? “Thank God we’ve arrested it!” You get worse? “You’ve got a terrible case here. You need to take more!” It doesn’t matter what the outcome is, the answer is more of their product. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/31 "2001-06-20T22:48:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Then why the hell are you answering the company’s e-mail? BWAHAHAA!! 🙂 I found that line incredibly funny, guess I’ve been studying too much :p. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/32 "2001-06-21T03:53:11Z")
OK, so we all smell the horse feathers, and I remain without doubt that said feathers are what we have before us with regard to the water product that will benefit you if you are a.) sick b.) healthy. But now I’ve come upon a couple of abstracts that, it having been 22 years since I last saw a chemistry classroom, are beyond me to really comprehend. They both make mention of the “_penta-water tetrahedron_” and I’m not understanding the reference. The author (same for both) seems to be addressing reaction speed. They are: [MOLECULAR MECHANISMS IN WATER](http://www.chemres.hu/KKKI/emlg96/ABSTRACT/AGMON.html) [Tetrahedral Displacement: The Molecular Mechanism behind the Debye Relaxation in Water](http://www.fh.huji.ac.il/~agmon/Abstacts/abst082.html) I also ran across references to substances in a penta-water complex (e.g., “For example, sodium thiosulfate may either be anhydrous (no water) or arrive as the penta-water complex Na[sub]2[/sub]S[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]3[/sub] • 5H[sub]2[/sub]O.”), which I understand to be a solution and not referring to free standing penta water. That’s not a problem, but, as long as we’ve got some chemistry minded folk reading this thread, what is referred to in those abstracts? ---
**Author:** ![quixotic78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3ab097/32.png) [@quixotic78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quixotic78)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/33 "2001-06-21T16:38:42Z")
Ok, I’ll start with the easiest to understand first… > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by beatle \* > **I also ran across references to substances in a penta-water complex (e.g., “For example, sodium thiosulfate may either be anhydrous (no water) or arrive as the penta-water complex Na[sub]2[/sub]S[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]3[/sub] • 5H[sub]2[/sub]O.”), which I understand to be a solution and not referring to free standing penta water.** Ok, in this case, sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate refers to a solid. What this means is that if you take a crystal of sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate and count all the molecules, you’ll find molecular ratios of 1 (S[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]3[/sub]) to 2 Na to 5 waters, on average. As such, it has nothing to do with the Magic Water. > [@](#): > > [MOLECULAR MECHANISMS IN WATER](http://www.chemres.hu/KKKI/emlg96/ABSTRACT/AGMON.html) The full reference is Agmon, N. _Chem. Phys. Lett._ **1995** , _244_, 456-462. I’d provide a link to the article, but you have to be a member of an institution subscribing to _Chemical Physics Letters_. Essentially, here’s what this article is saying. The ability of a proton to move in water is faster than what scientists think it should be. You compare the rate protons move in water with the rate sodium or potassium cations (positively charged ions) move in water, and protons move much faster (5-10 times faster). The way scientists have explained this is known as (apparently, I didn’t know this beforehand) the Grotthuss Mechanism. Basically, the GM says that proton motion in water is actually different protons moving in sort of a relay fashion. One proton on an H[sub]3[/sub]O+ molecule jumps to a nearby water, turning it into H[sub]3[/sub]O+. Then, a hydrogen from this hydronium ion jumps to another water, etc. So, when scientists see a proton moving very quickly, it’s not the same proton running the whole race. The article then goes on to quickly list problems with this mechanism. I’m not sure which side is right, Agmon or Grotthuss, but it doesn’t really have much bearing on getting stationary clusters of Magic Water. > [@](#): > > [Tetrahedral Displacement: The Molecular Mechanism behind the Debye Relaxation in Water](http://www.fh.huji.ac.il/~agmon/Abstacts/abst082.html) The second article is Agmon, N. _J. Phys. Chem._ **1996** , _100_, 1072-1080. This article confirms my earlier speculation, that the tetrahedron of water in Penta Water is four molecules arranged in a tetrahedron, with one at the center. This article does seem to favor a five-member water cluster as a “stable” arrangement of water (remember how I said some studies showed two molecules was best, others showed 20 was best, etc.) It does this on the basis of group theory, which frankly is impossible to explain succinctly (I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a way… if someone else wants to give it a shot, be my guest!) Regardless, this quote from the article is relevant to Penta Water: > [@](#): > > At high [Quix–e.g., room temperature] temperatures, loosely bound tetrahedra are expected. This is telling for two reasons. (1) Loosely bound is just like I said before… hydrogen bonding isn’t going to keep the waters arranged in tetrahedra for very long. (2) Agmon doesn’t say “At high temperatures, and with a 2 day proprietary process, loosely bound tetrahedra are expected.” So, even if you think tetrahedra water is “good,” you don’t need to do whatever to water for two days to get the Magic Tetrahedra. Chemistry is _fun_, isn’t it? 🙂 Mike ---
**Author:** ![Synergist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Synergist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Synergist)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2001, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/34 "2001-06-22T03:52:10Z")
Quix (or any other bio-chemically competent person out there), Assuming for the sake of argument that intra-cellular water is in tetrahedral form, and that ingested water is in tetrahedral form, and further, that tetrahedral water is the most stable arrangement at body temperature, what effect, if any, would that have on osmosis? I have always understood (assumed?) that osmosis involved the passage of individual molecules through the pores of the membrane. Is there any reason to believe that a tetrahedron of water molecules would (or even could) pass through the membrane as a unit? If, as I suspect, the tetrahedron would have to break up to osmose (is that a word?), then tetrahedral water, being more stable, would be worse than water in some other formation, because it would be, at least slightly, more resistant to osmosis. ---
**Author:** ![Father\_Pacelli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Father\_Pacelli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Father_Pacelli)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2001, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/35 "2001-06-22T12:24:38Z")
Sounds like a scam to me. You can learn more about quackery at [http://www.quackwatch.com](http://www.quackwatch.com) ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2001, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298/36 "2001-07-13T15:58:17Z")
Penta water rides again! [http://www.randi.org/jr/07-13-01.html](http://www.randi.org/jr/07-13-01.html) (Scroll down to the cell graphics.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/penta-water-can-someone-tell-me-if-this-is-a-scam/69298.md?page=1)