What's the Deal with Acid / Alkaline

mikefarinha
mikefarinha Posts: 21 Member
edited November 12 in Food and Nutrition
I keep hearing about people trying to balance their Acid / Alkaline in their body what is the deal with this? Why do people try to do this & what is the benefit? Is there science behind this or is this just some sort of hocuspocus?

Replies

  • IvoryParchment
    IvoryParchment Posts: 651 Member
    Your kidneys and lungs do this for you. Your food intake isn't really a big part of it. If you hyperventilate chronically it can make you fatigued by throwing off your acid/base balance.
  • LabRat529
    LabRat529 Posts: 1,323 Member
    It's mostly hocus pocus. There's little evidence that diet effects the pH of your blood to any significant extent. As the poster above alluded to, the pH of your blood (and therefore of the rest of your tissue) is regulated by a 'pH sensor' in the brain that controls how fast/slow you breath. Your respiratory rate influences the amount of CO2 in your blood and the amount of CO2 in your blood influences how much bicarbonate you have floating around. Bicarbonate buffers the blood and keeps it around 7.4 It just doesn't fluctuate much.

    The kidneys also help control how much bicarb is in the blood.

    There's some evidence, I'm not sure how strong it is, that suggests you can leach minerals from bone if your blood pH is chronically low. However, I doubt that happens under physiological conditions... maybe under pathological conditions, such as if your in ketoacidosis (acute or low-grade chronic), or possibly if you have respiratory problems effecting gas exchange.

    This bone-leaching thing is often stated as something that occurs regularly by the 'eat alkaline foods' crowd (or by the anti-soda crowd), but I'm just not convinced personally that it's a big thing. I could be wrong though, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that there was at least some 'science' out there to suggest it happens under some conditions.
  • mikefarinha
    mikefarinha Posts: 21 Member
    However, I doubt that happens under physiological conditions... maybe under pathological conditions, such as if your in ketoacidosis (acute or low-grade chronic), or possibly if you have respiratory problems effecting gas exchange.

    Did you mean ketosis or did you really mean ketoacidosis?!?! If one is suffering from ketoacidosis then there are bigger problems than blood ph!
  • ganesha303
    ganesha303 Posts: 257 Member
    In Ray Kurzweil's and Terry Grossman's book on longevity they devote a chapter to alkalinity and its health benefits. They do mention that the body already regulated the blood ph tightly, but that was not their point. I think the book was called "Fantastic Voyage". Sorry I am fuzzy on the details.
  • LabRat529
    LabRat529 Posts: 1,323 Member
    However, I doubt that happens under physiological conditions... maybe under pathological conditions, such as if your in ketoacidosis (acute or low-grade chronic), or possibly if you have respiratory problems effecting gas exchange.

    Did you mean ketosis or did you really mean ketoacidosis?!?! If one is suffering from ketoacidosis then there are bigger problems than blood ph!

    Ketosis. Although I just looked it up... for the average, healthy person, ketosis can't defeat the body's pH system (or so it would seem from a quick skim-through of the lit). So it would have to be coupled with another problem (in otherwords, even though I am pro-carbs, I can't fairly list blood pH problems as a reason to avoid a ketogenic diet).

    Ketoacidosis is, as you know, deadly :P
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