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The pH for dummies infographic is belittling and unhelpful - Rational Discussion about Alkaline Diet

lobotomybunny
lobotomybunny Posts: 18 Member
edited May 2017 in Debate Club
The pH for dummies infographic is belittling and unhelpful. I see it pop up so often in threads that talk about alkaline foods or food combining. Always by the same people who like to end discussion with a condescending jab. I'd like to talk about it more fully.

If a change in a tenth of a pH point means the difference between life and death, surely a change in a few hundredths of a pH point is significant enough to cause bodily unease.

Existing in a state of mild, non-life-threatening metabolic acidosis is fairly common. Drinking too much alcohol, excessive exercise, and dehydration are common and well-known causes of temporary, mild, and usually non-life-threatening acidosis. Mild alkalosis also exists.

But it is not always temporary. Diets that are deficient in fruits and vegetables and rich in grain lead to chronic acidosis due to the marked decrease in certain nutrients (potassium, magnesium), bicarbonate products and fiber and the increase in sodium, saturated fat, and sugars. Some scientists believe that this is one of the reasons for health problems associated with the post-agricultural diet.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11842945
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12450898/

the relationship between diet-induced acidosis and cancer
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3571898/

Alkaline diets favor lean tissue mass
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23152092
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597402/

Loss of bone due to chronic acidosis - whole food diets provide significant buffer
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC292842/pdf/jcinvest00268-0100.pdf

While you may not be able to significantly alkalize you body to the point of death, it is the bicarbonate produced by whole foods and potassium in many of them (and lack of sodium) that are beneficial in helping the body maintain optimal acid level, which is beneficial to maintaining lean tissue mass and overall health.
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Replies

  • lobotomybunny
    lobotomybunny Posts: 18 Member
    Ok... do you have any ideas about foods acting as buffers? Or are you telling me to study acid-base chemistry?

    I'd like to hear why people are so reactive when alkalizing foods are mentioned.
  • lobotomybunny
    lobotomybunny Posts: 18 Member
    edited May 2017
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    lobotomybunny wrote: »
    Ok... do you have any ideas about foods acting as buffers? Or are you telling me to study acid-base chemistry?

    I'd like to hear why people are so reactive when alkalizing foods are mentioned.

    Overall, this community tends to react strongly to pseudoscience and things that are presented as a "magic bullet" to weight loss or other health problems. I've never seen an explanation of the benefits of an alkaline diet that makes sense.

    Which is why I posted several references, assuming that people who feel strongly about it would take the time to read them. The decrease in certain nutrients (potassium, magnesium), bicarbonate products and fiber and the increase in sodium, saturated fat, and sugars leads to sustained chronic acidosis. Whole foods contain more of those beneficial nutrients that act as a buffer. I like the data in the last link that shows measurements in blood vs diet. It's old but interesting.
  • Geocitiesuser
    Geocitiesuser Posts: 1,429 Member
    tomteboda wrote: »

    No food survives this. Any suggestion that it can influence body pH is magic and woo.

    If that was true, diet wouldn't affect gout and uric acid build up so easily. Whether it matters for fat loss or not is a different story.
  • Theo166
    Theo166 Posts: 2,564 Member
    I don't recall ever seeing this infographic on MFP, perhaps you should post it so we know what you are ranting against.
  • Cherimoose
    Cherimoose Posts: 5,210 Member
    Just throwing this out there:
    Counteracting Acidic Diet Reduces Markers of Bone Loss in Older Adults
    http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/12006
    Meat and fish, which are high in sulfur-containing amino acids, generate appreciable fixed metabolic acid loads, whereas fruits and vegetables generate little acid and, in fact, may under certain circumstances generate more base than acid. http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/584S
    "..urinary calcium excretion is likely determined by the acid-base status of the total diet, including among other factors the contribution of sulfur amino acids to urinary acid production."
    http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/58/3/398.abstract

    :+1:
  • lobotomybunny
    lobotomybunny Posts: 18 Member
    edited May 2017
    @tomteboda, You mentioned large doses of aspirin, I mentioned alcohol, exercise, and dehydration as causes of acidosis (not to mention nutritional ketosis but I won't poke that bear), so it seems that we agree that it can exist, severe and life-threatening, mild and temporary, or benign. I hope we agree that it is the kidneys that can usually take care of it.

    I linked a paper that specifically addressed how certain foods contribute to the body's acid / alkali load:
    From a dietary perspective, fruits and vegetables result in the generation of alkali, whereas meat, grains, and dairy products generate acid. In addition, the diet may contain various acids and alkalis that, when absorbed via the gastrointestinal tract, contribute to the net acid/alkali load to the body. Finally, each day, HCO3− is lost in the feces and thus imparts an acid load to the body. In a healthy individual consuming a “typical Western diet,” there is a net addition of acid to the body. This acid, referred to as net endogenous acid production (NEAP), results in an equivalent loss of HCO3−, which must then be replaced. Importantly, the kidneys excrete acid and, in the process, generate HCO3−. Thus, the systemic acid-base balance is maintained when renal net acid excretion (RNAE) equals NEAP.

    (Several of the other links in the OP discuss the potential for chronic, diet-induced low-grade metabolic acidosis, chronic lack of minerals leading to acidosis, Western diet leading to net positive NEAP...)

    So, do you say that they are all wrong in saying that foods generate acids and alkali in the body? Wrong that the food itself contains acid and alkali constituents that are absorbed and contribute to the balance? Are they wrong in saying that the Western diet results in an net acid load? You argued that everything you eat goes to a pH of 1 in your stomach and that everything is destroyed and nothing survives, but if we look at my potassium example (which I am pretty sure survives digestion), I ask does nothing happen to the body's pH balance when one has hypokalemia due to poor diet? What about other electrolyte imbalances? Can they not be due to poor diet? Don't these mild or more severe imbalances affect acid/base balance at all? I think that the balance is more delicate, and that we can put our bodies under stress by consistently eating poorly.
  • lobotomybunny
    lobotomybunny Posts: 18 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    lobotomybunny wrote: »
    Ok... do you have any ideas about foods acting as buffers? Or are you telling me to study acid-base chemistry?

    I'd like to hear why people are so reactive when alkalizing foods are mentioned.

    Do you mean why people are dismissive of the idea that we should be concerned about the acidity of foods when consuming them? This link explains it pretty well: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet
    The alkaline diet is a diet fad that started gaining popularity in around 2010, based on the notion that it's possible to alter your blood pH through a change in diet to make it more alkaline, receiving numerous health benefits. There is no evidence whatsoever for this, and everyone selling this notion is a liar. Furthermore, there is no connection between what foods the proponents of this diet recommend and the actual pH of those foods....
    The nugget of fact this idea is based on is that food can alter urine pH, which can reduce the impact of kidney stones; this is unrelated to your blood or the rest of your body....

    Several lists identifying "alkaline" and "acidic" foods list lemons,[2] limes and oranges as "alkaline", even though they are obviously very acidic. Lemon juice has a pH of 2, is corrosive to some metals and can damage tooth enamel if consumed excessively. Simultaneously, sodium salts of weak acids used as preservatives, such as sodium benzoate, will be always identified as acidic, even though they are in fact weakly alkaline. This disconnect betrays the fact that the "alkaline diet" is the same old nature woo dressed up in scientific-sounding terms that people are likely to remember from school, and has nothing to do with the chemical concept of acidity and alkalinity.
    Some proponents of the diet attempt to circumvent the above problem by redefining the concept of acidity. Instead of testing the intact food, they burn it in air and test the pH of the resulting ash. The results of this procedure are trivial to predict: foods high in sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium and other group I and II metals will come out alkaline, and foods high in phosphorus and sulphur will come out acidic. This crude process has absolutely nothing to do with human metabolism, and the results are completely uncorrelated with healthfulness of the tested food. For instance, unhealthy foods containing lots of sodium, fat and carbohydrates would be alkaline according to this test, while high-protein, low-sodium foods such as eggs and soy would be acidic due to high sulphur content.

    Setting aside the specific diets/claims and issues with those, my question to you would be what is the benefit of focusing on the alleged acidity of foods vs. things like nutrient content? One link I found discussing the idea determined that there was nothing to it in the sense claimed, but that a supposedly alkaline diet still could be helpful as it would increase vegetables and fruits, which is good, etc. But certainly the main benefit of eating adequate vegetables and fruits is not how alkaline they are or their effect is or whatever. It would be a difficult and not very helpful way to approach eating IMO, and (again) mostly based on false claims.

    I don't know that there is a definite benefit of focusing on the acidity of foods. I really just wanted to have a discussion about it without the stupid condescending meme and the legions of people who come out of the woodwork and think that it is awesome. It is crude and unhelpful and seems like a swat with a rolled up newspaper. Happens way too often. Yes, there is definitely a benefit with a vegetable and fruit-heavy diet that I think everybody agrees is healthy. I think I stated earlier that regardless of the name of the diet or the actual acidity, the foods that are a part of it are associated with better health. So... so what if it is called an alkaline diet? Instead of saying 'duh you'd be dead if you could change your blood pH, derp,' why not reply that there is not enough evidence to fully support that it is the alkalinity generated by foods that provides the benefit, but it's a really healthy diet in many other ways...? I started this thread to discuss the merits of the diet and where the ideas behind it came from. To discuss and learn. Because I see most divisive issues like this in shades of grey. I am not pro-alkaline diet! I am pro-kind, rational discussion. And I agree that it is not helpful to base a good way of eating on false information. But I have yet to learn how the data that I referred to is false. How the papers are wrong.

    Rational wiki gives me the same creepy feeling as the meme. Using the words "fad" and "woo" are not arguments in and of themselves. It's great for entertainment but nobody changes their minds when being bashed with their (self-proclaimed) snarky point of view. It is just shaming people. But if you are solely posting it to relate what the MFP community thinks of the alkaline diet, their concept of an alkaline diet does not come anywhere close to the concepts discussed in the links I posted. At least one of the links I posted provided actual blood measurements after eating different foods. Not the pH of foods themselves (I feel like I've been saying this ad nauseum). But nobody seems to be reading or commenting on the links.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    lobotomybunny wrote: »
    I don't know that there is a definite benefit of focusing on the acidity of foods. I really just wanted to have a discussion about it without the stupid condescending meme and the legions of people who come out of the woodwork and think that it is awesome. It is crude and unhelpful and seems like a swat with a rolled up newspaper.

    I actually think it is an effective response to the claim (that IS made) that you are changing the pH of your blood or whatever. If you are not making that claim then it's not relevant to you, right?
    I think I stated earlier that regardless of the name of the diet or the actual acidity, the foods that are a part of it are associated with better health. So... so what if it is called an alkaline diet?

    Well, because there is no one "alkaline diet," there are lots of different versions with different foods promoted and forbidden. And, because shouldn't we be accurate and truthful in promoting the foods we do? I mean, if I thought people eat too few vegetables (and on average they do), would it be ethical to claim that they'd better do so or they would be acidic? Or is it better to explain the reasons you think it is important (nutrient, etc.)
    I started this thread to discuss the merits of the diet and where the ideas behind it came from.

    Honestly, from the first post it looks like you started it to complain about the illustration that some use to counter claims made. If you want to talk about a specific diet, you'd have to post that diet.
    But I have yet to learn how the data that I referred to is false. How the papers are wrong.

    What specific claim are you making? Posting a bunch of links to papers that focus on different things does not promote a good discussion. What are you proposing as beneficial (presumably eating some foods, avoiding others?, avoiding ketosis, I guess, some other stuff?) and what are you proposing as harmful?

    I personally would agree that sodium/potassium balance on the whole is a problem, but not because of acidity, and the issue with sodium is not food specific (you can add salt to vegetables, after all).
    Rational wiki gives me the same creepy feeling as the meme. Using the words "fad" and "woo" are not arguments in and of themselves. It's great for entertainment but nobody changes their minds when being bashed with their (self-proclaimed) snarky point of view.

    I'm not bashing you. I am explaining why people have strong reactions to the kinds of claims made by proponents of "alkaline diets." If you want to talk about something more specific, you have to be specific. The truth is that there are as many nonsensical claims made to support special diets called "alkaline diets" as there are similar claims made for "detoxes." Now, a specific "detox" may actually be a sensible way of eating dressed up with terrible faddy terms and claims, but I think you need to examine the claims and bad logic used to promote it, as well as the diet itself.

    That said, I totally agree that reasonable discussion is worthwhile, and if you want to talk about some claims (like whatever you are concerned that an overly acidic diet would do), I think that's worthy of respectful response. I don't think most of the people promoting "alkaline diets" as discussed in the link I gave are, however.

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