WHEN Unique Water hit the market 10 years ago, 240,000 bottles were sold a day in the first week.
Consumers were convinced the magnesium carbonate-rich water had magical qualities that could cure degenerative diseases and extend one's quality of life.
But it wasn't the inventor or manufacturer who were making these claims - the consumers were.
Inventor Russell Beckett was laughed at by several people when he put forward his idea to create a magnesium-rich water, before Bert's Soft Drinks at Caringbah decided to manufacture his product.
The research pathologist, who is based in Sacramento, California, said the idea came from observing the life of animals in the Snowy Mountains.
"Customers have claimed that drinking Unique Water has cured their arthritis, osteoporosis and migraines," Mr Beckett said.
"The most amazing story from a customer was that a man with 21 cancerous polyps in his stomach was down to one after drinking the water every day for a few consecutive months."
Mr Beckett drinks his product daily. He said changes had been implemented to improve the production line and the product had undergone several clinical trials.
St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, conducted a short-term clinical trial to test the effects of drinking magnesium-bicarbonate water (Unique Water) compared with non-supplemented water in healthy post-menopausal women from August 2005 to November 2006.
The findings revealed the magnesium-rich water was readily absorbed into the body.
Lyn Tozer, medical director from Sydney-based clinical research company Datapharm Australia, who supervised the trial, said there were good findings for the product and for drinking water overall.
"There was a trend for people drinking the magnesium-rich water to have a stable PTH (parathyroid hormone) compared with those who drank plain water," Dr Tozer said.
"Stable PTH is important for healthy bone metabolism and may also have something to do with various joint disorders. But the short-term study did leave a lot of unanswered questions, which means we need to conduct more studies."
Dr Tozer couldn't confirm that drinking magnesium-rich water could promote healthy bone metabolism until further studies were conducted.
