# Vicinal water

Category: Theories & Frameworks

Water near surfaces, especially hydrophobic surfaces, that is physically and chemically different from ordinary water.

6 passages · 1 author · 2005–2017 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/vicinal-water

## Synthesis

**Vicinal water** is the term for water in the immediate vicinity of a surface or interface, which possesses electronic and structural properties distinct from those of *bulk water*. [Source 1, 2] Peat emphasized that this interfacial water constitutes a special phase of matter, and that **most of the water in cells** is vicinal water, its state governed by the cell's metabolic energy and ionic environment rather than being a passive solvent. [Source 1, 3] Walter Drost-Hansen demonstrated that vicinal water is several percent less dense and has a greater heat capacity than bulk water, and that bulk water itself undergoes temperature-dependent transitions affecting enzyme reactions. [Source 2, 4]

The functional state of the cell is intimately tied to transitions in its vicinal water. In the resting cell, potassium ions, which interact very weakly with water, are associated with acidic protein groups, allowing water to form stable, somewhat hydrophobic structures. [Source 1] During excitation, potassium is exchanged for sodium and calcium, which are smaller atoms with a higher surface charge concentration that powerfully disrupt water's delicate intracellular structuring, making the cell water more hydrophilic. [Source 1] This destruction of structured water allows bulk dielectric water to enter cells, causing swelling and a separation of structural proteins, a phenomenon visible in electron micrographs of fatigued muscle. [Source 1] Peat argued that the cell's energy and relaxation represent a structural state involving the entire cell substance, where **high energy phosphate bonds** explain nothing about the cell's actual energetic organization. [Source 3]

The capacity for water to maintain long-range order is central to tissue transparency and function. Peat cited the lens of the eye, where the protein crystallin binds about twice as much water as other proteins and holds it in such a highly ordered state that it does not interfere with the passage of visible light. [Source 5] When energy processes fail due to influences like estrogen, polyunsaturated fats, or lactic acid, the water escapes the control of these proteins, becoming ordinary bulk water that scatters light and allows metabolic debris to accumulate, a primary factor in cataract formation. [Source 5] This long-range ordering principle was also observed by Max Perutz in wet protein crystals, where stable, mobile multilayers of water formed between protein surfaces, and by researchers studying clay, where interfacial water exhibits special catalytic properties. [Source 4]

Peat connected vicinal water to a broader concept of *water memory*, wherein water that has been near a surface retains some of that structuring effect. [Source 6] He noted that in the 1930s and 40s, water was already understood to have intrinsic memory and long-range ordering processes, a principle applied by Vernadski to show that wet, gelatinous substances can store a record of energy that has passed through them. [Source 6] The study of these forces at surfaces has been politically and economically contentious, as the implications of **non-local energy** at interfaces challenged dominant paradigms in physics and biology, leading to organized campaigns that discouraged research into structured water and related phenomena. [Source 2, 4]

## People also ask

### How does vicinal water differ from ordinary bulk water?

Vicinal water is less dense, has a greater heat capacity, and possesses a distinct electronic and structural order compared to bulk water, forming a special phase of matter at surfaces.

### What happens to cellular water during excitation or fatigue?

Peat described that excitation exchanges potassium for sodium and calcium, which disrupts the stable structuring of vicinal water, allowing bulk water to enter cells and cause swelling and protein separation.

### Why is structured water important for the lens of the eye?

Peat argued that the protein crystallin holds water in a highly ordered vicinal state that does not scatter light, and when energy failure disrupts this ordering, the water becomes bulk-like, contributing to cataract formation.

## Related concepts

- [Alkalosis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/alkalosis/index.md)
- [Endometriosis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/endometriosis/index.md)
- [Epilepsy](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/epilepsy/index.md)
- [Estrogen](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/estrogen/index.md)
- [Hydrophobic](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/hydrophobic/index.md)
- [Uncoupling](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/uncoupling/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Fatigue, Aging, and Recuperation

Ray Peat · Article · 2013

> As the particles returned to their relatively isolated state, there was a decrease of order, and the change was probably somewhat like the spontaneous energy change in the stimulated crustacean nerve. I assume the change would result from the absorption of environmental heat, possibly with infrared resonance with electron conduction bands.
>
> Seeing the structure of the cytoplasm as something like a spring-driven mechanism, able to bounce between two states or phases, makes it easier to see cellular fatigue as something different from the various metabolic energy sources, ATP, glycogen, and oxygen, which—contrary to conventional assumptions—aren't closely tied to the functional losses occurring in fatigue.
>
> The role of metabolism, then, becomes analogous to the role of the tapper in the early forms of the coherer.
>
> Water in its normal state is a dielectric. But when it is polarized by an electrical charge, or by the presence of a phase boundary, its normal state is altered. This is the special interfacial water, or vicinal water. With the movement of ions (mainly potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium) during excitation, the state of the cellular water is necessarily changed by the presence of different substances. In the excited state, cell water is less hydrophobic, more hydrophilic than in the relaxed state. A network of hydrophobic interactions extends through the relaxed cell. One of the properties of a dielectric is that it tends to move into the space between charges, with a force similar in principle to that involved in dielectrophoresis.
>
> In the resting state, potassium is the main inorganic ion, and it is associated with acidic groups, such as aspartic and glutamic acid. During excitation, potassium is partly exchanged for sodium, which becomes the preferred counter-ion for the acid groups, and calcium enters the cell along with the sodium. Potassium's interaction with water is very weak (its hydration has been called negative), allowing water to form the structures that are stable in the presence of hydrophobic surfaces. Sodium and especially calcium (smaller atoms, with higher surface charge concentration) powerfully interact with water molecules, more strongly than water interacts with itself, disrupting the delicate somewhat hydrophobic structures of the intracellular water.
>
> (Calcium, with its two charges, has important binding and stabilizing functions in the resting cell. In the excited cell, these internal calcium ions are released, while extracellular calcium ions enter the cell.)

### Source 2 — Pathological Science & General Electric: Threatening the paradigm

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/pathological-science-general-electric.shtml

> Philippa Wiggins, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Carlton Hazlewood, Freeman Cope, and Ray Damadian were among the most active proponents of the importance of structured water in living cells. Walter Drost-Hansen showed that water near surfaces (vicinal water) is several percent less dense, and has a greater heat capacity, than bulk water, and that bulk water undergoes transitions at certain temperatures that alter its effects on enzyme reactions.
>
> The question regarding the nature of the forces at surfaces or interfaces affects how we think about everything, from life to nuclear energy. The political and economic implications of "non-local energy" (which is most obvious at surfaces) have at times led to organized campaigns to discourage research in those areas. When Alexandre Rothen found (beginning in 1946) that enzymes and antibodies had non-local effects, several prestigious publications claimed to show how he must have been mistaken: The films he used must have been porous, despite his demonstrations of their continuity.
>
> The methods he developed at Rockefeller Institute quickly became standard for accurately measuring very thin films. In the early 1970s, a GE employee, Ivar Giaever, visited Rothen's lab to learn his methods. Shortly after his visit, he demonstrated his "new method" to the press. I saw an article about it in Science News, and wrote them a short letter, pointing out that the method had been developed and used by Rothen much earlier; they printed my note, which could be seen as a criticism of the author of the news article. About a week later, I got a letter from Rothen, thanking me for writing to the magazine; he said they had refused to publish his own letter explaining the situation, including his interactions with Giaever during the visit. I assume that the magazine felt some kind of pressure to protect Giaever and GE from an authoritative accusation of scientific dishonesty.
>
> In 1968 when I began studying biology at the University of Oregon, the professor of microscopy, Andrew Bajer, posted a display of dozens of micrographs, with explanatory captions, along the halls near the entrance of one of the science buildings. The one that interested me most showed orderly rows of regularly formed objects on a smooth surface. The caption described it as clusters of sodium atoms, deposited from vapor, on a film of a polymer (formvar, I think), under which was a quartz crystal.

### Source 3 — Physiology Texts and the Real World

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2014

> The basic group is usually an amino function.
> - The disposition of electrons in cells and tissues is a global phenomenon, integrating metabolism, pH, osmolarity, and sensitivity. Excitation creates a field of alkalinity.
> - Cellular differentiation; developmental fields, polarities.
> - Regulation of water; electroosmosis; edema in relation to cellular energy.
> - Vicinal water, all water near surfaces, most of the water in cells, has special properties.
> - Needs on the cellular level guide the organism's adaptations.
> - Functional systems, multilevel adaptive integrations, in which many “systems” and cell types are organized according to activity and needs, leading to anatomical and functional changes.
> - Energy and relaxation, cellular inhibition, a structural state involving the entire cell substance. High energy phosphate bonds explain nothing about the cell's energy.
> - Multilevel self-regulation; cell intelligence, organic compensations (function producing structure, organ regeneration, vascular neogenesis, stem cell functions, immunity/morphogenesis, tubercles/tumors, fat/fiber/muscle/phagocytosis) permits highly organized and novel adaptive responses, which are goal-directed rather than mechanistically “programmed” from the genes.
> - Sensitivity and motility—plants and animals, subtle cues, rhythms, motivations.
> - Adaptation—learning, intention, and stress.
> - Light, energy, motion; pigments and electron donor-acceptor bonds.
> - Acceptor of action, innate and learned models of reality. Intentionality is involved in “reflexes.”
> - Digestion—bowel and liver; immune system and nervous system; need and interpretation, analysis; approximation and assimilation. Intestinal flora and detoxifying. Detoxifying fatty acids, estrogen, insulin, nerve chemicals, etc.
> - Nutrition—appetite and satisfaction.
> - Reproduction, puberty, menopause; how they are affected by the environment.
> - Humor, curiosity, exploratory and inventive potentials and need.
> - Growth and aging; energy, individualization and generalization; mitosis and meiosis, germ cells.
> - Nurse cells, their interactions in various organs.
> - Chalones, wound hormones, phagocytes, regeneration, nerve products; inhibition of growth by nerves. Frog extracts in development. Anatomy is a dynamic system, whose integration is part of physiology.
> - Inflammations and tumors are systemic events, in causes and effects.

### Source 4 — Pathological Science & General Electric: Threatening the paradigm

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/pathological-science-general-electric.shtml

> In 1933 J.D. Bernal had proposed a structural model of water that contained a considerable amount of order (Bernal and Fowler, 1933) but by the 1950s the idea of spontaneous ordering in water was out of style, and he worked out a more random structure. Max Perutz, continuing the study of hemoglobin he had begun with Bernal, became concerned with long range forces acting through water: "The nature of the forces which keep particles parallel and equidistant across such great thicknesses of water is not yet clear." Normal wet crystals of methemoglobin contain regular layers of water 15 Angstroms thick. He suggested that a laminated structure of the water could plausibly explain his measurements. Comparing the protein crystal to montmorillonite particles, which incorporate several layers of water, each 3 Angstroms thick, each layer of water in the protein crystal would be 4 Angstroms thick, since swelling proceeds in discrete steps of that thickness. 52.4% of the volume of Perutz's normal, stable, wet protein crystals consisted of liquid. Part of the water is a fixed monolayer, but the rest is apparently in the form of mobile, interactive, multilayers. By 1952, Perutz had decided that long range forces weren't involved in hemoglobin crystallization, but he didn't comment on the long range ordering of clays, tobacco mosaic viruses, and other particles and gels. In 2005, an interlaminar distance of 17.9 Angstroms, or six layers of water, still seems to be stable in hydrated montmorillonite (Odriozola & Aguilar, 2005). Clay continues to be studied in relation to nuclear waste disposal, so the effects of surfaces on water's properties haven't been entirely excluded from science. The interfacial water in clay has special catalytic properties that make it interesting to many researchers (Anderson, 1970).
>
> Bernal's and Perutz' conformity in the 1950s rejection of long range forces and an ordered structure of water represented the dominant ideas in physics and physical chemistry, but many people (with very little financial or institutional support) were continuing to study the structure of water, both in the bulk phase and near surfaces, as in cells.

### Source 5 — Ray Peat KMUD: 7-19-13 BPA, Estrogen, HRT, Testosterone, Cancer, Tumors, Eyes Full Interview

Ray Peat · Interview · Jan 29, 2017 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z21WRIKs_c

> **Caller:** Hello, this is David. You know, and I know this is kind of a... a deep subject, and I've heard you ask questions before about water, Andrew, and I've read different things that Dr. Peat has written about, like poly water and different types of more structured water, and I'm just curious. You asked a question just a minute ago, and I don't know if I understood the answer, but when we have these tissues that are experiencing edema and we have what we're calling H2O, Is that water considered to not be structured at its optimum? And in line with that, kind of a similar question is, it seems like I've heard that, I think I've heard this from Dr. Peat in these different discussions, that do we produce our own water at times, and is that a more structured water? And then the other question is, like, when we drink orange juice, or we drink milk and say we're drinking raw milk versus pasteurized milk, is the water content within those foods, is that considered a very optimum structured water?
>
> **Andrew Murray:** Okay, Dr. Peat, did you hear those questions clearly?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yes. My article on polywater question talks about some of the... ranges of influence, how far a certain surface can influence a structure such as in clay. The water in ordinary clay is structured differently from bulk water. But there is also a question of how long the influence of that surface can last. Gerald Pollack at the University of Washington There are some videos on the internet that you can see his demonstrations of some of the odd behavior of water, even in fairly bulk situations. But ordinarily, it doesn't make any difference whether you drink water that has been boiled recently or frozen recently. It's mostly a matter of degassing that makes it behave differently according to its recent history. It's safe to drink tea or coffee water that's been boiled. But what matters is the state of the water inside the cell, and that's governed by the energy of the metabolism and the ratio of things like carbon dioxide to lactic acid. In the lens, the proteins in other hard tissues, collagen is the main protein that gives it stiffness. But in the lens, the main protein is called crystalline. And it happens that crystalline is very well ordered with reference both to the structure of water and to the wavelength of visible light. So the water surrounding these proteins in the lens is so well ordered that it doesn't interfere with or reflect or absorb the light passing through it. So it's an essential protein for maintaining the transparency of the lens. And this protein, if you compare it to collagen, or albumin, or other common proteins, the protein can bind very firmly much more water, about twice as much water as other proteins, and hold it under its influence. So really, the water of the lens and the protein is in a tight system, in a normal state.

### Source 6 — Protection and Restoration of the Nervous System 2005 Confer, 2005

Ray Peat · Interview · 2005

> **Ray Peat:** When you flow energy through any substance that has any capacity for memory, it's going to remember that. Now, this is the second passage of energy, so it's never the same as the first passage. The substance remembers by changing its structure. In the 1930’s and 40’s, water was already being realized to have intrinsic memory and to have long range ordering processes that made water near a surface different from the water at a great distance from the surface. The water that had been near a surface will remember some of that structuring-effect that it had. For example, where a body of water, or a drop, meets the air, it forms a film that’s tough enough for a bug to walk on. That's the sort of structuring that happens anytime something different is introduced in the water. Vernadski, by applying this principle showed that all substances - especially wet gelatinous substances - are able to store experience, or store the record of energy that has passed through them. A lot of people were thinking about the origin of life in terms of a “warm soup”. That’s how a lot of American biologists described it. Sydney W. Fox, who was a student of Operin and understood de Jong's work, suggested that maybe life didn't start in the soup. He thought, possibly, about condensing amino acids (formed in the clouds, or wherever) might have condensed on the hot volcanic rocks. So he just threw some powdered amino acids on hot volcanic rocks and sprinkled a little bit of water, just enough to make a very viscous gel. And then he scraped the stuff up an hour or two later, put it in water, and looked at it under the microscope. And it had formed something much more specific than the complex coacervates that Bungenberg de Jong had studied. Sidney Fox’ mixture of amino acids had spontaneously, and almost immediately, formed little bacteria-like particles, very uniform in size and shape.

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