Inclusion Criteria:

- Patients must have histologically or cytologically confirmed stage 0-IV breast cancer
and have a treatment plan consisting of 62Gy (31 fractions) of total breast radiation
therapy to be eligible; patients are eligible if they have received any number of
prior chemotherapies; patients having received chemotherapy prior to radiation will
be stratified among randomization groups during the second phase of this study

- Life expectancy of greater than 3 months

- Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status =< 2 (Karnofsky >= 60%)

- Ability to understand and the willingness to sign a written informed consent document

Exclusion Criteria:

- Patients receiving any investigational chemotherapeutic agents during planned
radiation or any prior breast or chest wall radiation treatments are excluded

- Patients receiving concurrent chemotherapy are excluded because of an increased
relative risk of skin toxicity; patients taking daily proton-pump inhibitor or
H2-blocker antacid medications are excluded because of predicted interference of
alkaline water consumption and stomach pH; herceptin for the purposes of this
clinical trial would be considered a chemotherapy, and as such, patients receiving
herceptin chemotherapy during radiation would not be eligible for participation in
this protocol

- Patients with a history of any prior malignancy except non-melanoma skin cancer or
carcinoma in-situ of the cervix not in remission for twelve months are excluded;
patients with known brain metastases are excluded from this clinical trial because of
their overall poor prognosis

- Pregnancy excludes female patients from this study because radiation is potentially
teratogenic and abortifacient; screening beta-hcg levels and clinically-indicated
diagnostic tests will be used to determine eligibility