The Most POWERFUL & *Healthiest* Drinking Water Ever Developed, (Nanopurifies & OXYGENATES Your Water?!) with Ken Guoin and Dr. Jeff McCombs

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast, it's the best kept secret in America, and when you experience it, it'll blow you away. We have a platform that's all pre-plumbed, pre-wired, and you can ship anywhere in the world that nano purifies and hyperoxygenates your hot tub, which is more powerful than hyperbaric. And actually, our studies have shown us it's more powerful than drinking the water.

Soaking in the oxygenated hot tub you'll see some dramatic improvements in health. And there's a lot more that we want to do with it, and there's a lot more applications that oxygenated water can help you.

Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Ben Greenfield: Well, it's no secret I'm a water snob. I'm very picky about my water filtration systems. I'm picky about the kind of bottled water that I drink. And of course, as a result, I've been asked by a lot of people, "Hey, Ben, what kind of cool newfangled water filtration system are you going to put at that biohacked home that you're building in Idaho?" It's no secret I've been also working on this home in Idaho behind the scenes. And, I've been digging a lot into this. I think that many of you know my family's been in the water filtration business for some time via Greenfield Water, but they really don't do any longer at least a whole house filtration system. And, when that kind of developed a couple of months ago, I thought, "Well, gosh, I should start to dig into the industry and see who out there is actually doing a really good job with whole house home filtration water systems who I could rely on as someone who I can recommend to you guys. Well, I kind of may have gotten in a little bit over my head in this case or a little bit too far underwater as the case may be because not only did I find a company that does some pretty advanced water filtration, but it's advanced, advanced stuff down to the point of fully oxygenating the water and doing some really cool things I'd never seen before. In the water filtration industry. And, they also do glass bottled water as well, which is super interesting. So, I have been kind of taking a deep dive, pun intended I guess, into this company, Ophora, O-P-H-O-R-A. If you want to check them out, the shownotes, by the way, are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/OphoraPodcast, O-P-H-O-R-A. Whether or not you're interested in the whole house filtration product or bottled water, just the concept of how you could do things like oxygenate water in the first place, I think this is going to be a fascinating conversation. I've got two folks on the show with me. Ken Gawyan is a USMC veteran. He's a scientist. He's an inventor with over 35 years of experience in water technologies and he holds a few very interesting U.S. patents in advanced water filtration technologies, many of which I'm sure he'll be able to share with you on the show, including this 14-stage filtration process that he's developed that they use in these Afora systems. Then, my other guest is Dr. Jeff McCombs who also assists Afora with their research and studies on oxygenated water. And, he specifically has a lot of background in kind of the food, the science, the health industry. So, between both these guys, I'm sure we can get fully informed on all my stupid questions about water. So, guys, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

Yeah.

And, just for my listeners, you did this for me when we first joined because none of us have actually been in the same room and talked before, but just for people watching the video version or listening to the audio version, who's Ken and who's Jeff?

I'm Ken.

That makes me Jeff.

Yeah. All right, cool. You guys have eerily similar voices. You didn't make this easy. One of you needs to talk in a falsetto. Jeff, you talk falsetto the whole and that'll help us out. So, I guess elephant in the room here is you guys are probably aware because I know you've probably heard some of my podcasts. I've done podcasts on things like coherent water. There's that company called Analema that makes the wands that supposedly stir in the water that structures water. I've done podcasts on structured water, with folks like Dr. Gerald Pollack or my brother and my father at Greenfield Water. I've even done podcasts on deuterium-depleted water, pulling the heavy isotope deuterium out of water to make that healthier and not gum up the mitochondria so much. But, I haven't really talked much about oxygenated water or what that even is. So, I think to address the elephant in the room right here, How exactly do you guys describe oxygenated water to people?

It's really the filtration system that Ken created because water is H2O, so it already contains an oxygen molecule. And, to oxygenate water in the past, many times they've used minerals which kind of create cages based on the charges of the minerals in the water. And, what Ken developed was a system that was able to put the oxygen within what we call recesses, which is created by the, the arrangement of the molecules between the H2O, because water itself has a slightly negative charge which allows it to attract the next hydrogen. So you're attracting all these molecules. And we, through this technology, We're basically putting water in at a nanometer level and probably even a picometer level. So we're able to get it in between the water molecules, which are— we're using as our cage.

Yeah. You know, probably as you're well aware of, you know, water in its purest form is called the universal solvent. So, and so that has a lot of ramifications. So We firstly nano-purify the water. And, by the way, we're starting out with some of probably the shittiest water in the country.

Ben Greenfield: Oh, yeah. I just got back from LA and I can tell you I was drinking purely glass bottled water down there.

We have pretty bad water here. So, what we're proud of is the fact that we're able to take this really compromised denature water and turn it into what we believe is the best water on the planet. And really, when it starts, it does start with nano-purification because again, water in its purest form absorbs anything it comes in contact with. So, I have 4 patents on this process. And, by nano-purifying the water, we're literally pulling our oxygen into the water molecule.

So, Okay. And, by the way, when you're throwing around terms, you're probably going to have to act like I'm a 6th grader. I'll pretend like I'm smart, but I honestly have no freaking clue what you mean when you say nanopurification.

So, almost distilled quality water. I mean, that's nanopurification. So, when you purify water to that level, you do have to restructure it. And, that's kind of the whole missing component in water purification is it's relatively easy to pull all the bad stuff out of the water. It's easy, but it takes a lot of equipment. But what's missing is the restructuring part, because when you purify water on a nano level, it takes everything out of the water, including the, including the useful minerals. So we, you know, we use rose quartz crystal, we vortex, you know, we bring the water we add the minerals back in. So, we're bringing the water back to life. So, two components to really great water, nanopurifying it but also bringing it back to life by restructuring it.

Ben Greenfield: Okay, got it. I'm going to make you slow down even more here. Going back to step 1, the purification. So, you said a few things there. You said, first of all, you got to purify the water. I'm very curious what your approach to purification is. And, after you explain that, you also said, "Well, then you take everything out and you got to use," I think you said rose quartz and restructure it. Explain both of those to me. We got time, but explain both of those to me, what the purification process entails and then why you do it and what the restructuring process entails.

When you have the opportunity, I want to get you out here to our plant, but we have a half of— it requires a significant amount of equipment to purify the water to the level that we do. We have a room here with about $500,000 worth of equipment, and it starts— it all starts with firstly, we have to remove the hardness from the water. That's the most— that's, that's an important component. We have some of the hardest water in the country, and the water all over the country is really— is pretty much hard except for the Midwest. What that means, California is literally— we're sitting on a rock. And so, water in its purest— you'll hear me say this over and over, water in its purest form absorbs anything it comes in contact with. So, the water here is so full of minerals and hardness that we have to start by removing that.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, the more minerals that are in water, the harder the water is.

Yes, that's correct. So you have to start there and it takes a massive amount of equipment, just especially here in California, to remove all that hardness. So that's where we start. And then we have several levels of where we purify the water and then we add it through reverse osmosis.

You—

in today's world, you have to integrate RO. That's the only way The most difficult thing to remove from the water is the pharmaceuticals and the trace hormones, and you have to integrate reverse osmosis.

And reverse osmosis and carbon filtration are the two that I hear about the most. And why would, why would you use reverse osmosis versus something like a carbon block?

We use carbon block first. You have to pull out the chlorine. We're dealing with municipal water. So the first thing that we have to do is remove the Remove the hardness. Second thing we have to do is remove the chlorine. The chlorine will destroy our own membrane. So we remove hardness, chlorine, and then we run it through massive reverse osmosis. And then we also integrate high output ozone, low pressure UV, and several other layers, layers of filtration.

When you say several other layers of filtration, what do you mean? We—

well, we use carbon. We finish the water with organic coconut carbon that imparts— actually imparts kind of a sweet taste to the water. So, yes, you're right. We use a lot of organic coconut carbon in our process. We use it when we start and we use it when we finish.

It's—

it's— it really has a nice flavor profile to our water. We've won several awards for the taste of our water. If you've tried our water, you know how well it tastes.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. I mean, I have. I've tasted at conferences and also I know that you guys use your plant there to actually produce glass-bottled versions that you send out. And, I want to get to the whole house filtration, how you can simulate your plant at somebody's house. But, what you just described, this process of carbon block, coconut carbon, reverse osmosis and multistage filtration. I'm assuming that's the 14-stage filtration process that you developed, but then you said after that, you're doing even more, something more happens to the water after it's filtered.

Well, part of the last processes is imparting— we use a sound frequency. So, our finished water, is actually water in its purest form absorbs anything it comes in contact with. Our finished water, because it is so pure, number one, we have to bottle in glass. You know, what people don't understand is a lot— all the pollutants, a lot of the pollutants we're coming in contact with today, all bottled water, as you know, is pretty much reverse osmosis water. Water, RO water is pretty pure water. So it's sitting in plastic And, what happens is that reverse osmosis water, that really pure water is literally sucking the toxins out of the plastic. So, I've been the lone wolf for 20 years saying you can't drink pure water out of plastic bottle waters because it's just a toxic soup of chemicals.

Ben Greenfield: Even if they use— what's that company, Fiji? It's a harder plastic and they say that some plastics are less likely to degrade. Is there anything to that idea? No.

So the worst water, you're right about that. I mean, the worst water is Costco water because if you feel their bottle, it's very pliable plastic. By the time it hits the shelves, it's 3 to 4 months old. I see it in back of people's cars all day long. It's sitting in the hot sun. That water is a toxic soup of poison, basically, in my opinion. So, you know, we couldn't bottle our water in plastic if we wanted to because it's too pure and it would absorb all these chemicals. So water has I've been an advocate of not drinking out of plastic bottled water for years.

Yeah, me too, me too. What about stainless steel?

Stainless steel is terrific. It's as good as glass. Okay. But, in terms of our bottling process, I mean glass, it's difficult. Glass is heavy, it freezes, it breaks. Shipping costs today are over the moon, but that's what we have to do. We have to bottle in glass.

Got it. So, you're filtering it, you're bottling it, but it's my understanding— and this is actually one of the things that interested me in your guys' process in the first place because I could probably kind of figure out how to piece together an RO carbon block filtration and monkey around in my own house and create something, but you've got this whole structuring oxygenating component as well. So, walk me through what happens after the filtration.

The great thing about the whole home systems is it constantly recirculates and restructures and it's just ongoing, which is what we're trying to do is mimic nature. So Viktor Schauberger was a gentleman who really identified that in nature, rivers flow in curves and the water is tumbled over itself and that's constantly going on and that constantly purifies the water, but it gives the water vitality and life. So in our system, we have— we vortex the water and in that vortexing process, we're also using crystals to basically smash the water against to allow us then to use the oxygen to fill those spaces. So we have to ultra-purify it because in, in those spaces that we want to use, you have hormones, you have microplastics, you have all these chemicals, the pharmaceuticals. So we have to get those out. So the ultra-purification enables us to then put the oxygen in. So, we're creating the space for that. So, we do the vortexing, we do the crystals, we add the oxygen. And so, that's all really just pushing the oxygen into this nanometer-sized spaces.

You said when the water's in nature like tumbling down a river or passing over rocks, I could see how that type of jostling of water molecules could cause a structuring of water due to the electrical charge that it creates, but you also said that purifies the water. If there's a dead cow upstream and I'm drinking water up in the mountains hunting, let's say, and it's been tumbling over these rocks and the dead cow is 500 yards up, I'm still going to get sick. The structuring process doesn't actually filter the water, right?

Let's back up a minute. So, we start by nanopurifying the water. You have to start there. And then, we go through the restructuring process.

Yeah, we take the dead cow out of the water first.

We take the dead cow out of the water first.

That's what I wanted to clarify because you said it purifies, but you have to filter before you structure.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, yeah. The restructuring brings the water back to life. Like you said, you could do this in your own home with the right equipment, not to the level that we're doing it, but you could get close.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, when you have the crystals then, so the water's been filtered, it's gone through all these 14-stage filtration processes that you described, so I got super pure water. Then, when it passes through these crystals, what exactly is happening? I mean, I give the bastardized explanation that it affects the electrical charge, but how do you guys describe it?

So, the rose quartz, it passes over a significant amount of rose quartz and it also is moving quickly through this rose quartz. So, What it's doing is we're opening up the water, we're positioning the water so it'll accept the oxygen. So, we're creating nanobubbles and you have to start by breaking up the water and that's what the rose quartz does. So, by passing a significant amount of water over a large we vortex it and then over the rose quartz crystal, it's opening up the water to accept the oxygen.

And, when you say vortex, does that basically mean that the tube or the vessel it passes through is almost like spiralizing the water?

Yeah.

So, first it goes through the rose quartz crystal, then we vortex it.

Okay. Alright. So, the rose quartz crystal would structure it and then the vortexing process would turn into a spiral or whatever and that's what's creating the tiny bubbles?

Yeah, yeah, it's part of it.

Okay. Alright. So, at that point after it's been vortexed or spiralized, is there a difference in the electrical components or the nature of the hydrogen and the oxygen that would somehow then make the water able to accept extra oxygen molecules?

Again, it's that ultra-purification, that nano-purification we do in the beginning to get all the garbage out that creates these recesses or spaces where the oxygen can be held by the water molecules themselves.

Ben Greenfield: If I were a chemistry professor and you were explaining those recesses or spaces to me, how would you explain those? How do those draw in an oxygen atom, for example?

Well, part of the vortexing and the, uh, helps to restructure the water. So that creates, um, formations that enable space enough in there for oxygen molecules. Actually, almost— it's a little less than 2. 2 molecules could fit in there. So we can definitely get 1 oxygen molecule in between all these arrangements that are created by the water itself, by the, the forces that the negative and positive forces. So again, it creates these little recesses between this H2O molecule and this H2O. There are these spaces in there.

You're not necessarily creating H2O2, you're creating H2O, but there are spaces within the structure of the H2O that allow for an additional 2 oxygens.

Almost 2, yeah.

Okay. Ben Greenfield: Okay, got it. And so, I am curious how the oxygen actually stays in there. But before we get to that, we've got the purified water, it's passed through the filtration, it then passes through the rose quartz which structures it, passes through the Vorticer which spiralizes it. And now, is that when you start to add oxygen to it?

Yeah. The oxygen's added right at the beginning of actually more the vortexing. So, it's spinning with the water. And then, as it hits the crystals, that helps to create some separation in the space to allow the oxygen to then fill those voids.

Okay, got you. So, if I were to buy, let's say, one of your whole house filtration systems, does it actually have oxygen tanks in there?

No. So, we only have one. It's a very complex So I have 4 patents on this process. And the interesting thing about our water, Ben, is, is unlike anything else that's out there, you can pour a glass of our hyperoxygenated water, set this on your nightstand, and in the morning you're going to have the same amount of oxygen. The oxygen is actually bound and stable to the water. So, you know, unlike when we go out and test hydrogen waters and we test other oxygen waters, there's very— in a lot of cases, there's very little or none in the water. When you open up the bottle, it's gone. So, our water, the difference is our oxygen is bound and stable to the water.

Ben Greenfield: How do you do that? Because a lot of times, because I've seen other oxygenated water companies and they'll even say, A, keep it cold so the oxygen doesn't dissolve as quickly as when you open it, and B, drink it within 15, 20 minutes because otherwise the oxygen is going to dissolve out.

Well, that's true because that's what happens with their water.

Yeah.

But that doesn't happen with ours because we measure ours. We've measured ours all the time. We continue to measure it. So ours will last over a period of what? I mean, we've measured as far as days.

Well, no, years. I mean, we've had, we had a woman send in water not long ago. How old was that water, Tim? It's like 3 years old. 3 years old.

How, how does the oxygen not dissolve out?

Again, part— there's 4 patents. One of the patents is— so we're breathing 21% oxygen here. Uh, um, we have a nitro— so part of our system, we have nitrogen scrubbers that scrub. So most of what— there's 21% oxygen, the rest of it's pretty much nitrogen, other gases. But we actually have a nitrogen scrubber that scrubs out all the nitrogen. It's giving us 99% pure oxygen. So when we take that pure oxygen, if you stick the hose in water, it's just bubbling out, right? So part of our process is we take those large bubbles and we turn them into nano bubbles, and they're so small that they fit in between the spaces that Jeff's just talking about. So in the water— water in its purest form absorbs anything it comes in contact with. It's pulling those nano oxygen bubbles into the water molecule. And that water is bound, that oxygen is bound and stable to that water. And that's why it lasts. You know, you can pour a glass and set it on your nightstand, you got the same amount of oxygen in the morning. That's why it lasts.

And a lot of that has to do also with the restructuring process and the crystal formations that are created like through this process. If you take regular tap water, the H2O molecules are— especially the hydrogen is very dynamic. So they've said it anywhere from a billion to a trillion times a second, it separates and reassociates. So it's very dynamic. I mean, water is the universal solvent. But if you can structure that water, you get a— you create more stability in the water to hold the oxygen molecule.

Here's what I might need help understanding, and Jeff, I know you do a little bit more with the human body, so maybe you could answer this question. If I want to get more oxygen to my tissues, I have to go into a hyperbaric chamber where I've got pressurized oxygen that I'm breathing so it saturates the tissues. Or theoretically, I could do something like intermittent hypoxic training where I'm exercising with an oxygen mask inducing a state of hypoxia by having the oxygen mask set to low oxygen and then you flip it to hyperoxia, saturate the oxygen while let's say you're sprinting and then go back to hypoxia. And both exercise with oxygen therapy like that or intermittent hypoxic training or the hyperbaric chamber, those are two ways you could saturate with oxygen. But if I were to just wear an oxygen mask, I'm not going to get more oxygen into the cells because they're A, not under pressure, and/or B, not in a hypoxic state. Now, if I were to drink water with more oxygen in it, how the heck is it going to get more oxygen into my body unless I'm doing it while I'm in a hyperbaric chamber or something like that?

Yeah. Well, there are two ways to think of water. There's pressure, which is going to be hyperbaric, and that's how it functions.. And there are gradients. So even as we just breathe normal air, oxygen comes into the tissues through these different gradients from 21% in the air, except if you're in LA or someplace it's less than 21%, then it's just moving down through gradients till you get all the way to the skin, which, you know, only gets about 1% of whatever you take in. So the oxygenated water moves through those same gradients, but most of that absorption when you drink the oxygenated water is through diffusion in the stomach. Because it enters the circulation very quickly. Um, red blood cells carry the oxygen. It's the hemoglobin molecule that carries the oxygen, and that gets saturated pretty quickly. There's not a lot of room to carry more oxygen. Uh, there's a little bit of space inside the red blood cell which is called red blood cell water, but most of the extra oxygen is carried in the plasma, which is what hyperbaric accomplishes, but through pressure gradient. And we're doing it just through the amount. So we have 40, 50, 60 parts per million of oxygen in the water, and the body doesn't really want that to enter the intestines because that is an anaerobic environment. So the beauty of that system is it has to maintain that anaerobic quality because that's where the beneficial bacteria thrive. So ours is diffusing through the stomach and there is gas exchange that takes place there. Enters the plasma and then enters the tissue. And what we do is we measure through transcutaneous devices. We can measure the elevation in the tissues of the oxygen. It's not in the blood, it's not in the plasma. We're actually measuring it in the tissues and it's delivered there within minutes.

That's interesting. That's— so what's a transcutaneous measurement look like?

Well, we've done this and it's I mean, this is where a lot of these application principles come in. It'll boost, um, uh, we did mine. So I went, um, we did Ken's, we did mine, and we did another woman who was even older. And, um, so my was 73, um, millimeters per hemoglobin, and it boosted up to 77 because I work out more. Then Ken has the opportunity. Ken's was 68, boosted up to 73.

Ken, I think he just called you a couch potato.

I think so. I caught that.

And then the other woman who was even older, because as we age, we carry less oxygen in the blood, we get less oxygen to the tissues. Hers went from 62 up to 73. So we measure these. And then, you know, I have the experience because I'm not a couch potato like Ken. That when I go to the gym that I do more pull-ups, I do more push-ups. So, I have the benefit. I recognize it right away because I've had that experience of drinking water before I go in and doing it when I don't. And, there is a difference. I'm carrying more oxygen.

Ben Greenfield: So, the transcutaneous measurement, I'd love to hear what that— where you could get something like that. But, I'm assuming if I were to wear a pulse oximeter that it's not going to show the tissue oxygenation levels because it's looking at plasma or blood, right? That wouldn't be a way for me to test this at home?

Correct. It's mostly looking at the hemoglobin. So, this is what the hemoglobin is carrying. So, the transcutaneous is actually going to measure what's going into the tissue.

Okay. And, is there an at-home way to measure transcutaneous or do you have to go to a special lab to do that?

The device we purchased was the Precise 8001. I think it's now a Precise 8008. It's a machine that costs about $6,000, but it does one monitor and you strap it on and drink the water and you see a boost and you see it just slowly decline over the period of about 45 to 60 minutes.

Huh, interesting. And, how do you know that for you with the pull-ups and everything that it wasn't placebo, that it wasn't, hey, I'm drinking oxygenated water, fancy unicorn tears in my bottle, I'm going to go do more pull-ups.

I've had the experience of trying it with it and without it and going back to it. I don't really have a belief in it, I was just trying to see what it would do. I wasn't carrying out an expectation that this was making me superhuman all of a sudden.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. How about actual research? Has there been research conducted on on anything related to oxygenated water or the filtration process that you guys use or plant growth, human performance, anything like that?

There's not a lot of research because what we do hasn't been done before. In the past, they've again used these mineral complexes, but that's pretty fascinating. So, there's a company called Revalesio. And they used to be in the game of making oxygenated water. And Russell Wilson, who— the quarterback, when he was with the Seahawks, he was drinking their water, and he credited it to helping him recover from the concussions that he had. Uh, Revalesio gave up the bottled water market and they went into, um, basically medical treatment with oxygenated water. And they've had to— it doesn't carry as much oxygen as ours. It uses the minerals They've had to make some changes to be able to apply it in a hospital setting where they've nebulized it, they've injected it, and they've shown it. They had a study, they just published the results of that study last week with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and it was preserving, it was slowing the progression of ALS. They've used it with MS that shows reduction in inflammation. They've had— they've got some serious backing of, I think, close to $60 million that they've taken in to do this, but they've demonstrated this over and over. And then there have been some smaller studies, a women's college in Texas where they measure the performance enhancement that was from the water. You're probably familiar with Dr. Brooks' work in lactate shuttle, and elite athletes tend to have a much more fine-tuned system. And usually in every study you use an elite athlete because the system's pretty dialed in. And elite athletes, after, after an event, their lactate levels will be very low, which means their oxidative phosphorylation, which is part of the electron transport chain in the mitochondria, is going to be higher. And so they're actually burning more fat as a fuel.

Yeah, that and they have elevated core cycle ability, meaning more of the lactose is reconverted into glucose in addition to less of it being produced in the first place due to more aerobic efficiency, so less reliance upon an anaerobic system. Well, this is very interesting. Now, how about the idea of minerals? Because a lot of people who have a reverse osmosis filtration system, they'll use electrolytes, they'll use minerals. They're kind of like add minerals back into their food and their drink because an RO system will remove a lot of the minerals. And, I know some filtration systems have a remineralizer or something like that built in to just add the minerals back in. Have you guys thought about that?

Yeah, we do that. Yeah, we do that. So again, yeah, what you end up with a high-quality reverse osmosis system you end up with pure, dead, acidic water. So part of our process, again, that makes Ophora unique is once we nano-purify the water, we restructure it. And we keep talking about restructuring. Of course, a key component of that is adding all the useful minerals back in, which we do. And we have a unique process that does that. We use bioceramics. They're impregnated with various— all the, all the useful minerals. And then we flow the water over those bio ceramics. So our water is— yeah, again, you have to bring the water back to life. It's dead acidic water. And that's, that's, that's a problem with RO. So most people that have RO are drinking pure water, but it's dead acidic water, right?

Because it hasn't been structured and remineralized.

Yeah. So what I always tell people, if you've got— they don't know, most people don't know that. So, I always say get some good liquid minerals and make sure you're supplementing with your— put them right in the water. With ours, of course, you don't have to do that.

Ben Greenfield: So, one other question. I want to talk a little more about the product and the logistics and the bottled versus the filtration. But, the idea of oxygen, obviously, you can get too much like reactive oxygen species, excess free radicals from too much too much ozone, too much hyperbaric, you know, whatever. Is there any type of risk of drinking too much oxygenated water, like too many reactive oxygen species generated, or have you guys ever thought about that?

Yeah. I mean, basically, when you think of oxygen, hydrogen, anything in the body, you really kind of refer to it or think of it in terms of a signaling molecule. So, when you elevate the oxygen levels, there's going to be a response by the different genetic pathways, enzymatic pathways in the body to produce more antioxidants. So, and that's been shown in some German studies where, um, within 5 minutes of drinking oxygenated water, you see an increase in ascorbic radicals, which then causes the increase in the antioxidant production. So the body is always looking to achieve that homeostasis, that balance. So each one is a signaling molecule signaling a different response by the body to keep everything balanced. With hyperbaric, you definitely can run into greater problems with the amount of oxygen that's been delivered. But at the same time, hyperbaric has been shown to affect over 2,000 gene pathways in the body. And that's because one pathway is affecting another path. And that's just the complexity of life and how the body responds. But we're doing it at a much safer level, we feel. And it's, you know, it's not staying elevated as long as you would get in hyperbaric because because of the immense amount of pressures that are done, which can be as soon as you get out of hyperbaric, within minutes those pressures start to come down, but they may last for hours. But within about 45 to 60 minutes, that starts to come back to a normal level prior to the reaching the oxygenated water.

Okay, got it. I mean, I've been actually drinking a lot of your guys' bottled water because you sent me some so I could kind of test this stuff out before I start filtering my whole house with it. And I do regular measurements of homocysteine, inflammatory markers, cytokines, et cetera, and I haven't run into any issues and it tastes fantastic, by the way. So, there's that at least. So, a lot of people are wondering because this is probably the number 1 question I get regarding water, "How can I filter my whole house? Just set it and forget it. I want my water I'm bathing in that I'm transdermally absorbing water from and showering in." to be the best of the best. I want to drink the best of the best, want my kids, my pets to have the best of the best. I want to water my houseplants with the best of the best. So, I want to wave a magic wand and put whatever your guys' coolest water filtration system is in someone's house. Walk me through. I realize I'm throwing you a softball here, but walk me through what this system actually looks like and what it does.

Well, you know, the biggest problem in the water improvement industry, and you having been in this business may understand this, but really the problem that most companies have in terms of purifying the water is, is the systems are all too small. You need to have a certain amount of contact time between the water and the filter media, and that's You know, so our systems are larger in that, for example, we have to pre-filter the water by removing all the hardness and run it through a sediment filter. And then the next part of our filtration is a large media tank. Our tanks hold over 350 pounds of various media, filter media. And that's what we do, I think, better than anybody. Is you— there's not enough. It's like these shower filters. People have these shower filters, these tiny little— there's a lot of shower filters out there. Most of them do very little because there isn't enough contact time.

Oh, I see. Yeah, that makes sense.

That's a big problem. And, you know, if you look at all of our systems, like we have a very robust shower filter, it's massive. It's a large filter that goes on your shower. Most women hate it because it, you know, it's not attractive.

But you wouldn't need that if you had the whole house system, right?

Yeah, that's right. So a lot of people can't afford— I'm jumping around here, I'm sorry. But yeah, a lot of people can't afford a whole home system. So, you know, 80% of the pollutants we come in contact with every day is from bathing and showering. So it's a big deal. So back to the whole home. So you— we take the hardness out. We have a sediment, again, a larger sediment filter than anybody uses. And then a large media tank with various medias, coconut carbon, KDF. You're probably familiar with KDF, pulls out all the heavy metals and it's pretty massive.

Yeah, I forget what KDF stands for.

It's a brand, actually. It's a brand of— it removes the heavy metals. It's primarily removing the heavy metals from the water. So, so you have to, you have to add that KDF material. So yeah, so it's just a matter of properly sizing, oversizing all your, all your filtration, which is what Ophora does. And then, you know, so our whole home systems are filtering down. You know, when you start to talk about filtering, it's like, you know, how low do you go? So You know, most companies that are selling whole home systems are saying, you know, you can drink. So we have like— you've probably heard of LifeSource, right?

No, never heard of them, but I don't get out much.

Okay. Yeah. So. Right. In order— so we have— when you, when you purchase our whole home system, we also supply you with an under-the-counter system with very robust RO. The only way to remove Everything from the water is reverse osmosis. To do that for a whole home system is expensive. So I mean, really expensive, you know, a massive RO system. And we do our, our top-of-the-line system. It's called our Ultra System. Integrates, integrates large reverse osmosis as well. And that's, that's the only system actually that also introduces oxygen. We only have one whole home system that produces oxygen.

So if I'm at your website right now, listen, this podcast is on your website. Which one would I get that has the filtration and has the oxygenation? What's it called?

It's the Ultra Estate System.

Yeah, yeah. Ultra Estate. U-L-T-R-A-E-S-T-A-T-E.

Okay. All right.

Gotcha. That integrates a very, you know, two, two issues with the reverse osmosis. It's very slow. When you— to make RO water is slow and it produces wastewater. So how we get around, we oversize the RO massively so that it can— that's our whole home system, RO system. It is— the RO membrane is huge. I mean, it probably weighs 70 pounds.

Yeah. So it doesn't slow the system down.

It doesn't slow the system down. So we're actually able to take a whole home big, you know, some of these houses we're dealing with out here are massive and the system is able to purify and, you know, on a nano level. So to purify on a nano level, you have to integrate reverse osmosis. So where I'm going with all this is that you have to have our, our standard whole home systems don't nano purify. When you're nano purifying, you're taking the water down to 0.0001 microns. You know, human hair is 10. So, and the only way you can nano purify to that level is with reverse osmosis. So that's why, that's why we have a reverse osmosis under-the-counter system that also goes along with our whole home system.

Right. So, you could get the whole home with the undersink or you could get the Ultra Estate?

Yes.

Correct.

And if you got the Ultra Estate, you wouldn't need under the sink?

That's going to give you nano-purified hyperoxygenated water out of every spigot in your house. If your dog's drinking out of the toilet, he's drinking nano-purified hyperoxygenated water.

Okay, got it. And by the way, for those of you listening in, if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/OphoraPodcast, O-P-H-O-R-A, I'll show you some photos and include links to this stuff. But, follow me on Instagram because at some point once we finish installing the Estate out at my Idaho house, I'll do a video walkthrough for you guys to show you what it looks like and how it's installed at my place because I think it'd be very interesting to see boots on the ground.

Yeah. Yeah, I can't wait to get that installed.

Yeah.

It's a little confusing because people go, "Well, why do I need an under-the-counter?" filtration system when I'm buying this whole home system. And that's again, because you have to integrate for your drinking water. You want to take everything out, strip it 100% and start over. And that's what you're doing with an under-the-counter reverse osmosis.

Now, now, for somebody who just wants like some water to drink, I know you guys in retail and you also ship it, have this big plant that you get. You're talking about that you have that does all this and then bottles it. And you ship out the bottles. How does that work exactly? Do people just get on a subscription service or can they order a case or what's that look like?

Yeah, primarily subscription. We're in high-end health food stores across the country, but primarily subscription. We're shipping water out to them every week.

Okay. And then, for that, I'm sure you get asked about this, but is that environmentally sustainable to ship out heavy glass bottled water.

No, that's why we're in the whole home. That's why we're in the water filtration business. We started with the water filtration business. So, there's no bottled water that's sustainable.

Right. But, if people want to see what it tastes like, they can at least order some before they were to invest in a whole house system just to see what it feels like.

Absolutely. And, in a lot of cases, people are still supplementing. When you purchase one of our systems, you get 2 free cases of our water and then you also get a significant discount because really, I mean, we're bottling 40, 50, 60 parts per million. And, a lot of our clients are actually still continuing to order our bottled water on a smaller scale. I mean, on a significantly smaller scale but supplementing with it.

Right, right. Yeah, yeah. So, the shelf life on something like the whole house system, Obviously, 14-stage filtration process, there's got to be stuff that you would have to occasionally change, replace, filters you got to replace, stuff like that. What's the upkeep on something like this like?

Yeah. So, I'm an engineering nut. I'm crazy about stuff not breaking. I mean, to a fault. So, we over-engineer our equipment, we oversize our equipment, and I'm determined to make all of our systems so it's a once-a-year maintenance.. And I've accomplished that. So our big filter media tanks that I was telling you about that have the 350 pounds of various medias, you don't have to change that media but once, 10, every 10, 15 years because it has an automatic back, backflush head on it. So, you know, every day at the end of the day, it's reversing the water and cleaning that media. So all of our systems, Ben, once a year you have to change your sediment filter, you have to change your UV bulb. That's kind of it.

So is that something that the average plumber would know how to do, or do you guys have to send somebody to somebody's house to do something like that?

Yeah, so all of our systems, of course, come with really great instruction manuals. And, you know, normally when we go out, like when we come out to install your system, or I think we're having a— your local plumber's gonna install it. And we're here to assist with that. But that's it. I mean, once a year, either a plumber or a handyman, they're very simple to maintain. Again, you know, when we're changing the media out in that big tank, which again, 10, 15 years, that's a bigger deal. But that can— a local plumber, handyman can also do that as well.

Yeah, okay. Another common question that I get is about pools and hot tubs. Do people who use your system just basically use whatever faucet is already going through the whole house filtration system to filter pool or hot tub? Do you guys sell certain systems designed for pools and hot tubs?

Yeah. So, that's where I started. So, 30 years ago, I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan, I was the largest builder and installer of Redwood hot tubs in the country, probably the world. And that's where I started. I started with hot tubs and fortunately all the young doctors at the University of Michigan Hospital were ordering our hot tubs and they are all frustrated with the— they used to joke about the hallways of the hospital smelled like chlorine and bromine because all the doctors are soaking every day. So they, you know, they, they came to me and said, man, there's got to be an organic. We don't like chlorine. I mean, this is back before people even knew how bad chlorine was. And so they came to me and I'm an inventor and I was the first person in the world to combine. So you have to use it. Let me, let me back up. You have to use it when you're doing a pool or a spa, particularly the spas. You have to use an oxidizer. Chlorine is a great oxidizer. Unfortunately, it's very carcinogenic. What we discovered was food-grade 33% hydrogen peroxide, and we started using that as our go-to oxidizer. And we have a small pump and we maintain a small residual of H2O2 in the water, and then we integrate high-output UV, high— low-pressure excuse me, low-pressure UV, high-output ozone. Again, the problem in the, in the pool and spa industry is the ozone and UV is always undersized. And people are starting to catch on now about actually 33% food-grade hydrogen peroxide is a more powerful oxidizer than chlorine. The only downside really is the expense. You know, chlorine is a commodity product.. It's about a buck a gallon. Food grade, 35%, 33% hydrogen peroxide, about 5 times that cost. But the only byproduct of hydrogen peroxide is pure oxygen. So it's an organic oxidizer and you have to have it. I don't care what anybody says. You'll see a lot of systems out there that go, you know, chemical free, you know, ozone and UV. Ozone and UV can't do it alone. You have to have an oxidizer. In the water. That's always the missing component. And frankly, I don't want to be gross here, but the real issue— the issue has always been the shit getting too close to the water. That's since the beginning of time.

You mean like chloramines, like the interaction of organic compounds like urine and skin cells with chlorine?

Yeah. And, you know, people in these spas, you know, people don't wipe very well. And so, you know, you're sitting in a spot that I tell people, first of all, you never, never get in a commercial spot.

Yeah, I don't, I don't enjoy those anywhere. Give me the heebie-jeebies. Even at hotels.

Yeah. Yeah. No, they're just horrible. So they got kids and they got kids in diapers in them. They, you know, adults aren't wiping well and stay out of those spots. But so I started in the hot tub business. And, that's still a big part of our business. We have a hyperoxygenated hot tub that you need to soak in and eventually you need to have one at your house. But, there's two ways to absorb oxygen. You can drink our water, which we've been talking about all day, but you can also soak in hyperoxygenated nano-purified water. And, I soak every day.

Ben Greenfield: Wait, wait. So, if I have a hot tub at my house, could I fill it with the water that goes through your whole house filtration system?

There's a whole separate system and it's a little trickier, nanopurifying hot water and restructuring hot water. But, we started there and we have a platform that's all pre-plumbed, pre-wired, we can ship anywhere in the world that nanopurifies and hyperoxygenates your hot tub.

Oh, incredible. So, you could outfit that to an existing hot tub?

Yes.

Yes. Interesting.

Good to know. Yeah.

And, what's really interesting is when you're sitting in our water, you're basically sitting in our drinking water. You can sit in our spa and drink the water.

And, get the transdermal absorption.

Yes.

Which is greater than hyperbaric.

Which is more powerful than hyperbaric. And actually, our studies have shown us it's more powerful than drinking the water.

Is that based on the transcutaneous oxygen saturation measurements again?

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, we've done that.

Yeah, yeah. It's powerful.

That is pretty cool that you could get in a hot tub and get oxygenated similar to a hyperbaric chamber.

It's incredible. It's the best-kept secret in America. And it's when you experience it, it'll, it'll, it'll blow you away.

Yeah. And you guys showcase that at some of your facilities, right?

We do. We have it right here. We have— we've got a wonderful hyperbaric, very large spa here.

Remind me where right here is.

Carpinteria, California, just a little bit north of Santa Barbara.

Ben Greenfield: Well, you guys, this is fascinating. I mean, obviously, people could try the bottles, but for all those questions I've been getting about a good water filtration system, I mean, you guys are who I'm going with after all the research that I did and all the conversations I had in the industry. So, I'm obviously pretty impressed with it. And again, I'll link to BenGreenfieldLife.com/O4AWater or O4APodcast, OP. H-O-R-A podcast. I believe we have some special discount codes and stuff for you guys who want to save or try some of the bottled water. Anything else you guys want to throw in before we say our goodbyes here?

Soaking in the oxygenated hot tub, you'll see some dramatic improvements in health. I mean, I've got in with big knots on my leg from hiking in a stream and then a rock falling on my leg. And, 30 minutes later, it's about a third of the size. If you go to the website, which Ken doesn't want anybody to do, I'm an avid—

I'm an extreme hiker and I've taken some really bad falls.

He had a recent surgery and you see the scar and you see the effect of soaking in the tub, the dramatic healing.

Have you seen that picture?

Send me the link to it and I'll put it in the shownotes.

It's incredible. I don't want to be famous for this, but the wound healing is Pretty crazy.

And, you earlier asked about the effect on plants. And, I mean, Ken has seen some hugely dramatic changes. And, I remember you were telling me about a big mansion in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills area where they took out all this old foliage, huge— I mean, trees that have been there 30, 40 years, planted all new stuff, and then they use oxygenated water and the amount of growth with within such a short period of time was tremendous. So, I mean, there's a lot and there's a lot more that we want to do with it and there's a lot more applications that oxygenated water can really help you. Ben: Wow.

Well, you guys, I'm super excited to get the word out about this. So, folks, if you have questions, comments, feedback, if you try it and have your own stories to share, just put it all over in the comment section. I read all the comments. Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/OphoraPodcast. You don't have my cell phone number, but you do know a way to talk to me if you want to. Just comment and I see it. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/AforaPodcast. And Ken, Jeff, thank you so much, you guys. This is fascinating.

Thank you, Ben.

Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Alright, folks. I'm Ben along with Ken and Jeff from Afora Water signing off from BenGreenfieldLife.com. Have an incredible week.

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