Electrolyzed Water and Dentistry...how does it work?
Many of you asked if the Egret actually works? Yes. We have independent, accredited testing from STC and SVA. Egret EO creates different levels of Electrolyzed water, HOCL, Hypochlorous acid. The end result depends on the starting tap water source. For the very best results tap water with a PH between 6.5-7.5 will yield Electrolyzed Water that we have tested. When tap water is more alkaline, which can happen, you can adjust the Ph level by adding a small amount of acidity found in every day vinegar. It's best to know your starting tap water to begin - or find a water source that is "neutral".
Electrolyzed Water is very well researched and proven. You can perform your own simple testing to verify the solution and match it with known efficacies....
Something as simple as ELECTROLYZED Salt and Water can perform such a complicated task - but that is how mother nature intended! Using a little bit of science to help mother Nature change compounds like Salt and Water that surround us, that we as humans are constructed of to kill germs is what we mean by;
"Powered by Nature"
So what exactly do we mean by "Proven by science" - what does HOCL, Hypochlorous acid or electrolyzed water actually do? How does Hypochlorous acid inactivate virus? It does, and it's proven over and over...but for those who like to read science....
For example WHY a certain CONCENTRATION is important (why 65% alcohol isn't sufficient as compared to 70% and comparing the effects of bleach concentrations....science!
On we go my fellow nerds....(Credit to an unknown author at Biology.stackexchange.com)
Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is a very powerful oxidizing agent. In aqueous solution, it dissociates into H+ and OCl- as:
HOCl ⇋H++OCl−
However, HOCl also destroys viruses by chlorination. It acts on anything, from lipids to nucleic acids. For example, Hawkins et al ,2002 describe in detail the effects of HOCl on nucleic acids. HOCl, by direct chlorination, leads to the formation of chloramines, and ultimately nitrogen-centered radicals. These radicals often react with each other to form dimers. Also, they have reported formation of single- as well as double-stranded breaks on application of HOCl on plasmid DNA.
These reactions render the nucleic acid useless and the virus harmless. In a similar manner, HOCl also reacts with polypeptides, ultimately leading to their fragmentation.
Also, application of HOCl has been shown to promote denaturation and aggregation of proteins. The linked paper also talks about HOCl's effects on other biomolecules, such as carbohydrates, but those effects would be out of scope here.
Remember that proteins don't do their job outside of their native conformation. The hypochlorous acid post-translationally modifies the proteins in a way that they lose their shape and begin to aggregate. The authors believe that the reactions are sufficiently fast that the denatured product builds up faster than the refolding reaction can take place. Your innate immune cells do something similar to combat microbes or cells they recognize as distressed or foreign, known as oxidative burst, by releasing compounds such as hypochlorous acid.
Now, viruses are just protein coats and nucleic acid. Sometimes they have an envelope, but the envelope is typically quite easy to destroy with detergent. Naked viruses are known to be able to survive a number of days in harsh conditions. The virus depends on elements of the protein coat such as spikes to attach and facilitate entry into the host. Denaturing agents will act to destroy these structures, preventing infection.
So what are some important considerations?
1) Concentration: At an inappropriate concentration, common disinfectants will fail because they lose efficacy. For example, alcohols at least 65-70% abv are known to be the lowest efficacious concentration, and anything lower you see the killing begin to drop off. People tend to use bleach at 10% or 100ppm.
2) Contact time: Proteins take time to denature and immediately cleaning away the bleach will not accomplish your goal. Five to ten minutes wet contact time is appropriate for bleach. If it dries it loses effectiveness. Anything higher you don't see an increase in effect, either. HOCL efficacy comes from its electrolysis which renders it neutral and allows it to penetrate cell walls quickly as opposed to negatively charged chlorine which takes longer(chemically known as -CL). thus Hypochlorous acid has been shown to be "80-100X" more "powerful" than bleach alone. Please take the time to read the studies to understand how this efficacy is measured - but it mostly has to do with how Electrolyzed Water is able to "blast" the protein walls of germs...
3) Compound: Bleach isnt good for everything. It works on hard, non-porous surfaces, but it also requires pre-cleaning because without a detergent, bleach won't remove grime or films that may inhibit its action. Electrolyzed water contains a small amount of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is beneficial to cleaning...There is good evidence of how neutral charged hypochlorous acid can penetrate cell walls without pre-cleaning, although pre-cleaning and physical removal of bulk debris is always a good start! As a blogger, author and with an investment in Egret - it's important to me that people buying the product do their own research and understand the capability of electrolyzed water. You can start your own research journey by clicking this typical google search....