Gerald Pollack, PhD, started out life as an electrical engineer. Then he ran across the work of Gilbert Ling, a Chinese-born American cell physiologist and biochemist who dedicated his life to advancing our understanding of the mechanics of the human cell. In the process he opened the door to studies of the structure of the living waters comprising 60 to 70 percent of the human body and more than 99 percent of our body's molecules.
After switching fields and doing years of research into the nature of water, Pollack, now a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle (pollacklab.org), discovered something new: a highly structured fourth phase of water that appeared when regular water was placed in contact with extremely hydrophilic objects (objects that easily absorb water), such as Nafion—an electrically neutral synthetic polymer.
Using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMR), infrared and birefringence imaging (basically using polarized x-rays) and other types of measurements, Pollack and his lab assistants have discovered an alternating lattice-type array of hexagonal sheets of oxygen and hydrogen atoms, similar to a liquid crystal.
Neither liquid, gas nor solid, this fourth phase of water is formally named exclusion-zone water, aka EZ water. It's so named because when water comes into contact with a hydrophilic (water-absorbing) gel or other hydrophilic surface, it immediately excludes minerals, plastic microspheres, protons and any other solutes, propelling them away from the interfacing surface of the gel (see box, page 41).1
Experiments using “falling ball viscometry” have proven this exclusion zone has a viscous, almost gel-like consistency that extends to distances up to several hundred micrometers.
Structured water and cells
What does this discovery have to do with human health and well-being? For starters, it completely reframes science's view of the nature of cellular and interstitial water in the human body. Most of this water is in close contact with various hydrophilic surfaces, such as the proteins in every living cell and in cell membranes themselves.
Cell membranes are made up of phospholipids—complex molecules consisting of hydrophilic phosphate-and-alcohol “heads” attached to two fatty acid chain “tails. ” Examples are phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylserine.
The appearance of EZ water next to cell membranes suggests that our bodies create and store alkaline
