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Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Dr. Keesha Ewers is an integrative medicine expert, Doctor of Sexology, Family Practice ARNP, Psychotherapist, herbalist, is board certified in functional medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, and is the founder and medical director of the Academy for Integrative Medicine Health Coach Certification Program. Dr. Keesha has been in the medical field... Read More
Gerald Pollack received his PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He then joined the University of Washington faculty and is now professor of Bioengineering. He is also Founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal, WATER, convener of the Annual Conference on the Physics, Chemistry and Biology of... Read More
- Get to know the phase of water you did not know about
- Figure out how the fourth phase of water fills your cells
- Sort out why maintaining a full complement of the fourth phase of water is critical for your health
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Welcome back to the “Reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit 5.0,” everybody. We’re on the fifth version of this and we’re talking about how the different parts of the world, and your interface with that world, affect your energy system, healing the energy body. And of course, everything is energy, and so this, my wonderful , this is one of my academic crushes that I’m presenting to you today, Dr. Gerald Pollack, who received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He then joined the University of Washington faculty and is now Professor of Bioengineering. He’s also Founding Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal Water,” convenor of the annual conference on Physics, Chemistry and Biology of Water, and Executive Director of the Institute for Venture Science. His 2001 books, “Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life,” and his newest book, “The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid Liquid and Vapor,” won highest distinctions. The latter book went on to receive The World’s Summit Excellence Award. He’s a founding fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and a fellow of both the American Heart Association and Biomedical Engineering Society and he’s presented two TEDx talks on water. In 2015 he won the BrandLaureate Award previously bestowed on notables like Nelson Mandela, Hillary Clinton, and Steve Jobs. In 2016 he was awarded the Emoto Inaugural Peace Prize and more recently the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chappell Natural Philosophy Society. He appears briefly in the 2016 Travis Rice sports action film, “The Fourth Phase,” named after his recent book, and he’s been noted as one of the world’s 100 most inspiring people. In 2020 he presented his work at the Majlis by invitation from the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi at his royal palace. I’m not sure if I pronounced a few of those things correctly, but welcome, again, Dr. Pollack.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, thank you, thank you for that wonderful introduction. Much appreciated and well I’m hoping to share a little bit of the tiny amount that I know with you and sure, happy to respond to your questions in the beautiful background that I see behind you.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Thank you. So, we’ll just start off with, for people that aren’t familiar with your research and what we learned in elementary school science has been reconfigured, right, what is the fourth phase of water?
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Well, we learned, as you say, in elementary school science, that water has three phases. It has solid, liquid, and vapor, everybody learns that, children learn it, adults learn it. We discovered that there’s actually a fourth phase and the fourth phase, it’s not merely the sort of laboratory curiosity that you’d expect to come from an academic. It’s all over the place and it, there have been hints of this kind of fourth phase for more than 100 years. 100 years ago there was some physical chemists who said something is wrong. There are so many things that we observe from water that can’t be explained by the usual three phases of water and mostly those have been considered anomalies. And anomalies are stuff that doesn’t fit the existing theory so you sweep them under the carpet and hope that maybe in a few years someone will figure out how they can be made to fit into the existing paradigm. But when you get enough anomalies the carpet becomes bumpy and you begin tripping over it. And you have to ask the question, is there something wrong with the current viewpoint? And there were a few people who became prominent in realizing that there was something different from those three phases. They didn’t call it a fourth phase of water, but they implied something just like that. They said, there’s something different, especially about biological water, and by the way we found it’s not just biological it’s way beyond biology, but it does in fact fill your body, fills your cells. And we began calling it a fourth phase of water, we have other names for it I’ll describe in a moment, but it’s all over. And the way you know that it’s in your body is by thinking about one of the characteristics of this water. So the water is actually gel-like. It has the consistency of honey, for example, or raw egg white, it’s in your body. And if you just think about it, if you think, as you’ve learned incorrectly, as you’ve learned that your body is filled with ordinary liquid water, that’s what we presume, we know we’re 2/3 water, and the presumption, which appears in every textbook, is that this water-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And it’s H2O, it’s the water.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
It’s H2O, it’s ordinary liquid water, it’s the usual stuff, it’s the stuff, my doctor tells me I need to be better hydrated.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Hydration break everybody.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, you’d think I’d know, but he says, “Your organs are all working just fine, but your kidney craves more water,” so I’ve been assigned to drink more water.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
That’s ironic.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
You know you think I might know something about the subject, but, it’s the way it goes. Okay, so if you just think about it, so you’re in the kitchen and you’re trying to slice some onions razor thin and you slip and you cut yourself. So, if the water inside your body, were ordinary liquid water, it’d come pouring out, like a breached water pipe, water comes, but it doesn’t. As you know you do lose some blood, but the water that’s inside your cells stays inside your cells and that’s an indication that it’s not liquid water, it’s something else. And the idea that the water inside the cell is gel-like came 70-odd years ago in a book by a scientist named, , I guess he was German. He wrote a whole book describing the fact that the water inside the cell was not a liquid, it was actually a gel. And this experience that I’m telling you about very simply demonstrates that it’s a gel and the gel water sticks to the solids inside the cell and that’s why it doesn’t come out. So, this fourth phase we discovered and I wanna emphasize it was not some special cleverness that came out of, as we knew from previous work that there was something different inside the cell and so we found something a bit different from what people had envisioned previously. Previously they thought, well, the molecules must be lined up in a special way, in some ordered way.
So you can imagine a water molecule being like a bean and one side of the bean is plus, and the other side is minus, is a dipole, and these dipoles then are lined up next to one another to create structure. Now that was the prevailing view for quite a while and I did write a book on that subject trying to pass on to the community, or to the world, the views, especially of two people, one Gilbert Ling and Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, and Szent-Gyorgyi won the Nobel Prize for discovering vitamin C, and he was so creative, many aphorisms came from him that are remembered. And my favorite, I’m sorry if I’m going off on a tangent, but my favorite one is, “Discovery,” he said, “Discovery is seeing what everybody else sees but thinking what nobody else has thought.” I love it. And he knew also about water that biological water was different and he, and essentially Gilbert Ling, who came from China, selected in the first cohort of Chinese scholars after World War II, to study in the U.S. and there was a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist, and he was the biologist chosen from all of China.
The physicist went on to win a Nobel Prize, and Gilbert should’ve won three Nobel Prizes for his various contributions, but he was too controversial and he won nothing and he passed a couple of years ago, sadly. So, our work builds on the works of all of these people in the past, it’s not that it was pulled from thin air. And we discovered, so let me just tell you two or three of the basic characteristics of the water that we discovered. First of all, it is like a crystal, it’s ordered, like a liquid crystal, that’s the first thing. Second thing is it builds mostly next to certain kinds of surfaces. The surfaces we’re talking about are so-called, hydrophilic, water-loving surfaces, which means if you have a surface and you drop the water on it, it spreads out, water loving. It’s not like your Teflon pot where you drop the water and it doesn’t interact at all it beads up, it doesn’t like it, water-fearing, hydrophobic, it’s the hydrophilic surfaces. So you have a surface that’s hydrophilic and next to it sits water. And what happens is the first molecular layer of water meets the surface. The special surface, it’s not so special because most surfaces actually do that, most hydrophilic surfaces, and they nucleate the transformation of ordinary H2O, molecules of H2O, into this special kind of, we say fourth phase water.
And fourth phase water, so the first molecular layer forms, and then the first molecular layer forms a template for the growth of the second layer, and the third, and they just keep growing. If you stick an electrode in, into this region, you’ll find that it’s not neutral. So ordinary water, as you know, is neutral, but it is not neutral, typically it has negative charge. So the way it builds is water molecules, which are neutral, undergo transformation to create this negatively charged array and your natural question is, well, what about the positive charges, where did they go? They actually wind up pushed out beyond this region, this fourth phase region. So you got, let me just say, that’s one reason why we call this exclusion zone, because it excludes everything, not just the protons, but as it builds, because it’s a crystal, it excludes all the junk, all the stuff that had been in the water. So, we call it exclusion zone, or EZ for short, because it’s an exclusion zone and it’s EZ to remember. So we call it EZ water, that’s the water that’s in here, or fourth phase water, they’re the same, so I use the two terms interchangeably. So finally-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And so then structured water is not interchangeable then?
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Well, structured water is a generic term. It’s been used for a half century and a person shouldn’t just get up there and wave a flag and say, okay, now we call that EZ water, or fourth phase water, but I don’t know, it just came into being maybe because this water was sufficiently different, I don’t know. But just one more, or just two more features that are I think really important. The first is that this water, as I said, typically negatively charged, and the water beyond is positively charged, and so therefore it’s like a battery, minus-plus, and you stick two electrodes in and you can light a light bulb, we’ve demonstrated this in the laboratory. On the other hand, trying to convert this into something that might be useful, useful for humanity, is a big leap. We’re trying to do that, but it’s not trivial to do it, but I think that is certainly a possibility to get there. And second, you know, being like a battery, all batteries need to be charged. So your cell phone, and by the way I have none, I think I’m probably the only creature on the face of the earth, a , who refuses to have a cell phone which makes certain aspects of life more complicated, but I tend to think I might be healthier and also not, not as much connected as I would be otherwise. I can’t keep up with all my emails and such, anyway, to charge your cell phone you gotta plug it in at night right, and so in the morning you can make all the myriad of calls that you need to make and receive.
And so the same thing applies to this EZ water, to this battery-like configuration. So where does the energy come from? Well, it comes from light, we found that light is what’s responsible for building this. It’s not just any wavelength of light, or any color of light, it’s infrared light, infrared light. So, those who know the spectrum will know infrared light, but we started our experiments at the shortest wavelengths that we could study, which is the ultraviolet, they’re very short, and then longer into the visible range of the spectrum from violet all the way to red, and then beyond at longer wavelengths into the infrared. Most of those wavelengths were completely ineffective, but the infrared was like gangbusters, it just, very tiny amounts of infrared light, or infrared energy, could build huge exclusion zones, we could build them. Actually in one extreme experimental condition we could build them up to one meter in width, or length, or whatever. That’s obviously not usual and of course that doesn’t happen in your cell because your cell is only that big, so, but it could really build.
And infrared energy is the prime source of energy for building, but it doesn’t mean that other sources might not help build and we do understand about some that can build, but I think this is really the major. And it’s all over the place, it’s not just when you push down the toaster and you see the coils glowing, heated, light, bright orange, it’s, everything is generating infrared. So, if you were to turn off the lights where you’re sitting right now, and I had a camera with an infrared sensor, instead of a visible sensor, visible light sensor, even if it’s completely dark, you can’t see a thing, I get a beautiful image of all of the wonderful things that sit behind you, and you of course, yourself, sitting in the background. So, it’s all around and what does that mean? Well, it means that EZ water is always there, it means that if you have water, and you have a hydrophilic surface, which most surfaces are, a good chance you’re gonna have a good deal of EZ water. And of course, if you crank it up, more infrared light, you’ll get more EZ water. So, sorry for the long speech, but I’ve tried to give you a background in what this kind of fourth phase, or EZ water, is all about. Now, I’ll let you, your chance to say a few words, okay.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
No, I mean, this is what I asked you to do because for people that aren’t familiar with this I think it’s important if we have to move from that foundational piece of what we all learned in elementary school science, and then get to where we’re talking about this fourth phase in a way that has agreed upon premise. So, I had mentioned to you at one point, several years ago, that in Ayurvedic medicine, they talk about this life-giving force that’s a gel, or honey-like, called ojas, and that this sounds like that’s what that is. I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to anyone from the Ayurvedic world.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
I just had lunch with someone who practices Ayurvedic medicine, yesterday, someone in Seattle, so yeah, we do have some discussions, and somebody independent of that person, was talking about tropical fruits and some of the tropical fruits, instead of having water inside, like an apple, for example, where you take a bite and water, the fluid runs, have gels inside, they’re gel-like, and some of those gels are known to be good for healing, you see, and one wonders, so. And I also have a colleague who has invented some kind of gel that’s filled with, so-called, structured water, and he claims miraculous benefits, you just put the gel on the surface. And I myself experienced someone from a pharmaceutical company to whom he wanted to market this stuff for their subsequent sales and such. It didn’t work out, but the guy was saying, “I got this yesterday,” he said, “And I put it on, I’ve got a bum knee, I used to play soccer, I can’t play soccer anymore because my knee hurts, and I put this gel on my knee and I have no more pain, suddenly.” So I think there really is something to it, and yeah, these Ayurvedic substances.
So the one in particular that we’ve studied is ghee. So you know what there is to know about ghee, I know much less about ghee, but I do know that it comes from Ayurvedic culture, was it 5,000, 10,000 years ago, and it’s been used. And we did experiments and, volia, it turned out that if you put water next to a surface of ghee, it builds EZ. Not only does it build EZ water next to it, but the size and the amount of that is more than pretty much anything we ever studied, which means, if EZ water, or if this water, which fills your cells and needs to keep your cells filled, if it’s good for health, which we believe it is, eating stuff like ghee should be greatly to your benefit. And I know that that people whose, we’re not 5,000 years old yet, but who are of Indian origin, or know the Ayurvedic culture, will eat ghee all the time and perhaps that’s why they look so healthy, I don’t know.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I eat a little bit every day too.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, you do, yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
From my Ayurvedic studies a long time ago, but it’s remarkable. And there’s also lore inside the Ayurvedic paradigm that says that ghee acts as a carrier when you take your herbs with it to get it inside the cell. So that’s an interesting idea, too, it’s in line with what you’re talking about, if you take a little bit of ghee and then you do your supplements and, or your herbs, and then it facilitates it getting .
Dr. Gerald Pollack
That may well be, I’m trying to think of that I’m not sure what I would say in response, but yeah, I mean, these substances from Ayurvedic times, they knew something that we didn’t know, or don’t know, or some of us know, you know but, not so many people. My friend with whom I had lunch yesterday, Gillian Erlich, maybe you know her.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Gillian interned with me, she.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, did she?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh!
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I taught her everything I know.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh my goodness. You taught her, she taught you? You taught her.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
No, I taught, yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, okay, yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
We have lunch together periodically.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yep.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, and we were discussing about EZ water and other other stuff, and yeah, so it’s nice to have that connection. I’ll tell her that I chatted with you, or maybe she’ll check this and yeah, so she understands and knows about all of those things. So it’s not, it’s not just the ghee though, from the Ayurvedic culture, but other substance. And so turmeric, for example, so, I found out I’m really a novice at these things and practically knowledgeless about Ayurvedic culture. However, I was curious because I found out that substances like turmeric, for example, it practically cures everything that might ail you and so someone reminded me of that, it was not Gillian, but this was earlier, and I’m thinking, well, what’s the mechanism? And so the first thought is, well, or the more conventional thought, might be that it has, maybe there are receptors inside the body for turmeric, but that didn’t make sense because it would mean, if turmeric really has all of those beneficial effects, it must mean there are receptors, different turmeric receptors, and so many different tissues in your body, it’s possible, but, Occam’s razor would suggest that it needs to be something simpler, not something so complicated you see, and so we thought another option, another hypothesis, is that turmeric impacts something, some unique substance that’s present all over your body and what would that be? Well, obviously water, EZ water, fourth phase water.
So, we thought, I thought, we thought, I don’t remember, maybe it’s possible that turmeric has a positive effect that it grows EZ water. You need EZ water in your cells to function, this was the essence of my 2001 book, “Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life,” that water was not just a passive bystander, that water participated integrally in everything that the cells do, essentially everything, and that water we now know is EZ water, not just so-called structured water, a different name, but slightly different properties than were presumed, but yeah, that’s what. So we wondered is it possible that turmeric increases the amount of structured EZ, fourth phase water, because you need that stuff since it participates in everything the cell does? If your muscle wants to contract, the EZ water is directly involved, for example. Okay, I wrote a book on that in 1990, about muscle contraction, but it’s not, so we tested it. And what did we find? Well, we found that small amounts of turmeric, similar to the concentrations you’d have inside your body, they build EZ water, you can easily increase it by 20%, 30%. And so we tried other substances as well, basil for example, holy basil, as the Ayurvedics would.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Tulsi.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yep, same thing, and we tried some other substances and among the half-dozen, or so, substances that we checked, that are known to be, known for years, centuries, to be good for health, every one of them built EZ water over a fairly wide concentration range. And so that’s where we are right now, thinking that in terms of health benefits, the Ayurvedic culture, they had it right, they knew what they were doing. It’s a pity that these kinds of supplements that we have now are not embraced by the health science, the community a whole lot, because it seems they work. It’s been known that they work, but unfortunately they tend to be rejected in favor of the products of the pharmaceutical companies.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Well, if you add some ghee to your turmeric, or to your Tulsi, then it even, according to Ayurvedic medicine, will have a even greater effect of-
Dr. Gerald Pollack
I have no doubt, it makes total sense-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
That if you had the ghee it will have such effect.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So I’m drinking green tea right now and I think you taught me, a long time ago in one of our interviews, that that was one of the things that you studied in your lab too right?
Dr. Gerald Pollack
I didn’t hear the first part, what are you drinking?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Green tea.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, green tea.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Have we studied green tea, maybe.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I thought it was one of the things on the list. You had a list of things that you had studied, that was one, and then also being buried in the sand, and hugging a tree and being, the far infrared light wave form, that these were all.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Absolutely, all of them, and I don’t know which ones date back to Ayurvedic culture, you know, but I don’t know, but all of those expedients are known to be good for health and we’ve investigated these and we know, so yeah, connecting yourself to the earth. So probably many people who are watching this know about this, about earthing, or grounding yourself, and there are lots of studies now, they’re biophysically oriented, to try to figure out how does it work, how come if you bury yourself in the sand, or bury yourself in a mud bath, or so, why does that feel good, why does that improve your sense of wellbeing? Well, yeah, the reason, I think, is actually a simple one and it has to do with the EZ water. So as I mentioned, you really need a full compliment of EZ water in each of your cells, in order for those cells to function properly, without it you’re dehydrated, this is really what dehydration is. And your cells, as you know, if you play two matches of tennis you’re not gonna function as well as if you’re fresh. You’re tired and you’re dehydrated. So, what’s what’s going on here? Well, it started with a Russian guy who was working in my laboratory, a creative guy who had a, he had an answer for everything and some of his answers really were, were creative and thoughtful. And as he was leaving and departing back home to Moscow, actually , or the science city through Moscow, he was starting to tell me some new information and he was talking about the electric field of the earth. I said, “I’ve never,” I had never, 15 years ago, probably a dozen years ago, I had never heard of the earth’s electric field.
I said, “Andre it must be a slip of the tongue, your Russian translation to English must be suffering, you mean the magnetic field of the earth right?” He looks at me, he says, “No, I mean the electric field of the earth, haven’t you ever heard of the electric field of the earth?” “Andre,” I said, “I studied electrical engineering for four years as an undergraduate and no professor ever told me that the earth has an electric field.” So Andres says, “How is that possible, everybody knows that the ionosphere is positive, the earth is negative, and in-between those two there’s an electric field that runs from positive to negative, just like that, perpendicular to the surface of the earth.” “I never heard such a thing, Andre, you must be on a drug of some sort, or hallucinating or something.” So I went home that evening, after he told me that, “There’s gotta be something deficient with the American educational system, because in Russia every middle school student knows that the earth is negatively charged.” Embarrassed I went home and I scratched my head and couldn’t sleep so well that night I was so intrigued because I’m thinking if this guy is actually right, he couldn’t be right, if he’s right it changes so many things. And next morning I walk in, one of my students hands me, a thick three-volume set, the lectures of Richard Feynman. So Feynman, as many people know, many people consider him the Einstein of the last half of the 20th century. Brilliant guy, Nobel Prize, et cetera, et cetera, also a guy with a sense of humor, maybe that’s the reason why people, practically every graduate student in Physics, reads his books.
So, he handed me Volume II, chapter nine, and the whole chapter was about the evidence for the negative electrical potential of the earth, negative charge, the earth is not neutral, the earth has negative charge, it’s just that nobody ever bothers to teach us that, I think it’s been forgotten throughout science. So anyway, I’m sorry for this long discourse, but it leads to the reason I think why, why this is the case. And I think the reason reason is that if you connect yourself to that sea of negative charge, the negative charge will infuse itself into your body, especially into those cells that don’t have enough negative charge. We actually found, experimentally, what this does. If you take a container of water and you stick take two electrodes in and you look to see what happens near the negative, the electrode that that pushes electrons into the water, as those electrons go in the water they build EZ, they convert ordinary water to EZ water.
So, it means if you connect yourself to the earth, electrically connecting, by burying yourself in damp sand near the water, or as I said, a mud bath, or even connecting yourself to an aluminum plate, which is in turn connected to a rod, a metal rod, which is in turn driven into the earth, same thing, you’ll receive, this negative charge will infuse into your body, into those regions that have insufficient negative charge and build EZ. So, I think the reason you feel good after this procedure, either immersing yourself, or hugging a tree, pretty much the same thing, you’ll feel better because you’re building EZ water in your body and your body was essentially designed to be filled with EZ water. Proper function, like newborn babies, young adults, they’re full of EZ water. As you get older and you get a few wrinkles and dehydration, or a lot of wrinkles and dehydration, you don’t function as well as you did when you were 15 years old. So again, I’m sorry, long story, but.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I guess this is why it was the utility of going to the baths, the mud baths, the different, going to the coast to get better in the first part of the 20th century. Like all these places had that charge and it was taking people out of the Industrial Age and putting them back onto the earth’s negative charge again right?
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Well, I think you’re right, and it goes back to so-called primitive, ancient cultures. I mean the Romans had their baths.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
It did just that, I don’t think, as far as I know, the Romans didn’t know about EZ water, maybe they did, I’m not sure, but yeah, that’s the case. So many cultures the baths have been really important.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right. Going to the, saunas, when I was in Israel the Dead Sea mud, that has all these claimed, famed healing properties and it’s probably this right?
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, did you immerse yourself into-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Oh yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
I did too, yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yep, .
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Quite an experience to be able to float there while reading a book.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yes, indeed.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Or a newspaper. But then you wanna get that salt off your body pretty soon.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yep.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
You know the Israelis are really concerned about water and of course as it’s pretty dry there, and they have a lot that’s going on in Israel. In fact an Israeli friend of mine, originally an American who moved to Israel, wanted to get me to move there, he said, “You should be in charge of all water research in Israel ’cause you know what’s going on.” But well, depending on what happens in this country in the future, maybe moving to another place could be…
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
In the cards, I don’t know. But yeah, so they knew about it and even the Israelis, the mikva, the bath, right?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
The women’s bath, and that’s been going on for how many thousands of years. Purify yourself, especially after a period, having a period. So many cultures, for so many cultures, probably the majority, the water, the water has been so central to their culture. And for us, mostly we’re dehydrated.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right, right. The energy drinks, the coffee, these are not things that are actually-
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, I know, it happens and I gotta tell you that this cup is just for show, it’s usually filled with coffee.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
No wonder your doctor’s yelling at you.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Uh, my doctor isn’t yelling at me, he doesn’t yell he’s a real.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I’m gonna join the chorus of come on .
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Well you look well-hydrated. You’ve got no wrinkles, whatsoever, and you look like the symbol of health.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Well, I juice every day and that’s one of the things you told me also, in one of our interviews, that that’s also taking the EZ water out of the plant and ingesting it.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Absolutely, those plants, they’re fresh plants just grown, they’re not old and decrepit and inside their cells, their cells are just filled with EZ water. So sure, if you drink that water it goes directly into your body. You bypass the step of taking ordinary water and having your body having to convert, at least some of it, to EZ water, so you’re drinking it directly. And so it really works, obviously, that you’re one prime example. My late wife used to do the same. Somehow I haven’t the time to do it, but she used to do it and we did it for, I think it was close to a year. I think I may have lost 10 years, I got 10 years younger after having done that, but I need to do it some more.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Maybe I need to find wife to help me. Or something.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
For me what I, it has to be easy. And so I use, and I’m not a spokesperson for this, but I just use a Breville Juicer and it’s so simple. I can put a whole beet in there, you don’t have to cut it up, so.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, oh.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
If it’s easy to do, and it’s easy to clean up after, and it goes fast, then I’m all over it. And so that’s-
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Do you grow your own vegetables and use them?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
No.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I just get organic produce from our local co-op, and the local farms, so.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Good for you, yeah, well, maybe I need to do that. I am actually just about to move back to my home, which I think you know, has been filled with mold. The Northwest-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
And Seattle, it’s almost inevitable. I’ve been living away from home in this temporary apartment now for, I’ve been away from home for more than one year and finally within a month-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
The last time I interviewed you, you had just, you were just starting the process, so, congratulations.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, unfortunately more than one year and still another month or two.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
It looks like, we’ll see. But that’s a great idea. So buy the organic produce, put it into that gadget and the juice comes out.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Exactly.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
‘Cause the plants, EZ water and then the-
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Well, the plants have so much of it and the way we know, I’ll tell you how we know, so this digresses slightly into science, rather than daily life and health, but if you stick an electrode into a cell you measure a negative electrical potential, and every physiology course will teach you that. And the reason for that, the physiology or cell biology class will tell you, it has something to do with the membrane, and the membrane pumps and channels, that exist in the membrane. There are reasons, and I’ve written papers and it’s in my books, the reasons, there are various reasons why I think that’s misinformation, that those objects don’t exist. And I don’t wanna go into it right now because I’ve written enough about it, and if they don’t exist, then I mean, this is a misinterpretation of different entities that exist in the cell, or maybe in the membrane of the cell, but they don’t do what most think they do, so if not, why is a cell negative? Well, the cell is negative because it’s filled with EZ water, which is negative right? So the more EZ water you have in the cell the more negative the cell is gonna be.
Now it turns out that animal cells, like yours and mine, the typical negative electrical potential is somewhere between 50 and 100 millivolts. For plant cells it’s more like 200 millivolts, which means, if the arguments I’m putting forth have had any credence to them, it means that the plants are even more filled with EZ water than our plant cells, than our cells. So if you harvest that material, that EZ water, either by juicing, or by hugging a tree, there’s lots of negativity, if you’ll pardon the expression, negative here is positive. Yeah, so yeah, you do it, and you’ve probably heard the story that was told to me by my friend who went to some kind of outdoor symposium and someone told him the story, which is new for him, that George Washington, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, he was paranoid about being sick and wherever he went to give a talk or whatever, he used to give talks too, it’s not just modern-day politicians, he’d bring his physician with him just in case he got sick. I guess trips took longer then than they did now.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Sure.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, and so-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So the physician brought the leeches along.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Pardon, could you repeat, I didn’t hear it.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I said the physician brought the leeches along.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh yeah, the leeches along, yeah, that helped I’m sure, but this physician, in this case, said something different from the leeches, although he may have had leeches too. He said, “George, I hear you, you’re not feeling so well, why don’t you just hug one of the local trees?” It seemed to work.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Wow!
Dr. Gerald Pollack
And so, so this apocryphal story has been known for a while and people do that, they hug trees and I guess it could help, you’re basically connecting yourself to a huge source of negative charge and that negative charge is helpful for your body, so it really is true. And then you brought up the idea of the sauna, or as the Finns would say, the sauna, they never heard of sauna, they heard of sauna, or the Russians who live next door, next to Finland and they refer to it as the banya. And it’s not so different, it’s a little bit different because in the Russian version, after you’ve subjected yourself to that intense heat, they use the leaves from some local trees. So you expose your back, you lie down, and they beat you with these leaves from which tree is it, the ones with white bark, birch trees, okay, they actually beat you with it. So my, when I was in one of them my friend said, “You don’t have a heart condition, do you?” “No.” “Okay,” wham, wham! They put it in cold water and then, it’s the tradition, I guess it’s not so different from what the Finns do, they jump into ice-cold water.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Roll in the snow, yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, so why the, I guess the question, or your question, you know the answer, but maybe, I think the reason that the sauna works, the way it does, is because the heat is essentially the same as infrared energy, it’s like the heat that comes from your toaster and the glowing coils, it’s the same in the sauna, it’s really hot. And whether it’s dry or wet, it’s hot, and heat is essentially the same as infrared. It’s not exactly the same, the heat is the result of infrared, the infrared is the source, and so that source then applies infrared energy to your body and infrared builds EZ water, you see? So what you’re doing, not every wavelength gets through, but some of the wavelengths do penetrate, so what you’re doing by going into the sauna, or sauna, is exposing yourself to this infrared, building EZ water and if EZ water is necessary for health, which evidence suggests that it is, and by the way you get infrared, ordinarily, we get infrared from not only from the outside, but also inside because metabolism generates heat and that heat then is used for, presumably, for building EZ water, so you maintain a good level of EZ water. But if you’re missing some of it, if you’re, for example, your muscle cells are fatigued and you’re in the sauna, you receive the infrared, and your muscles are feeling better when you come out. I think it’s as, possibly as simple as that. So, home saunas with infrared bulbs work pretty much the same way.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Beautiful.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
We’re all inclined to prefer the natural, but it’s not always easy to come by that. So you probably have one in your backyard or something.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I do, I do.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, on my back deck. And often we’ll take a quart of freshly juiced vegetables in, while I’m in there and drink it, so.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Ah, you’re amazing, you’re amazing, I mean you look like the absolute symbol of health.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I am. Yeah, I exercise every day, go hiking, hug trees, all of your recommendations, Dr. Pollack, so.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Well, I’m flattered that I’ve maybe made some impact. Yeah, these are so simple.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, they are.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
They may take a little bit of time and effort, but it seems like that’s what’s needed to keep you healthy. Also exercise, so-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
I deal not only with a physician, but a couple of naturopaths, and they said, “Well, we’re gonna keep you going until the age 120, at least, however, there’s a caveat, you need to exercise every day.” That’s the hard part.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
You do it.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yes.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
But I, I yeah, yeah. A bit of resistance there. It’s not real resistance-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
You’re not alone most people do, so you have to find-
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, it’s time.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Something that you love.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
It’s time, I’ve got two books that are-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Almost on the threshold, and two more in the thought stage, there’s too much to do.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Well, I can’t wait to read them. We are out of time and I-
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh my goodness.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Thank you so much for sharing even a fraction of your wisdom with us.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Oh, well, thank you, Keesha, it’s always fun and I just love the background, it’s so beautiful, but.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Thank you.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Yeah, okay, anyway, take care and, well, thank you.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
All right everybody, until next time, be well.
Dr. Gerald Pollack
Thank you, okay, bye-bye.
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