QUESTION from Frank L. in Detroit Michigan: Is there any clinical evidence regarding promotion of alkalinity via dietary support as some doctors say the body automatically regulates Ph automatically so I am confused ?
Frank the doctors are only partially correct and in defense of their extensive medical education, similar levels of clinical justification are provided below. In a very simple example, most cars run on gasoline so you really do not need water in the radiator….right? An absurd proposition yet to say that the body freely regulates pH without consequence is as absurd and the clinical backing for the Alkaline Movement is well established.
When it comes to the pH and net acid load in the human diet, there has been considerable change from the hunter gather civilization to the present [1]. With the agricultural revolution (last 10,000 years) and even more recently with industrialization (last 200 years), there has been a decrease in potassium (K) compared to sodium (Na) and an increase in chloride compared to bicarbonate found in the diet [2]. The ratio of potassium to sodium has reversed, K/Na previously was 10 to 1 whereas the modern diet has a ratio of 1 to 3 [3]. It is generally accepted that agricultural humans today have a diet poor in magnesium and potassium as well as fiber and rich in saturated fat, simple sugars, sodium, and chloride as compared to the pre-agricultural period [4]. This results in a diet that may induce metabolic acidosis which is mismatched to the genetically determined nutritional requirements [5]. With aging, there is a gradual loss of renal acid-base regulatory function and a resultant increase in diet-induced metabolic acidosis while on the modern diet [6]. A low-carbohydrate high-protein diet with its increased acid load results in very little change in blood chemistry, and pH, but results in many changes in urinary chemistry. Urinary magnesium levels, urinary citrate and pH are decreased, urinary calcium, un-dissociated uric acid, and phosphate are increased. All of these result in an increased risk for kidney stones [7].
Much has been written in the lay literature as well as many online sites expounding on the benefits of the alkaline diet. The concept and health benefits are irrefutable.
REFERENCES:
1. Ströhle A, Hahn A, Sebastian A. Estimation of the diet-dependent net acid load in 229 worldwide historically studied hunter-gatherer societies. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2010;91(2):406–412. [PubMed]
2. Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Sellmeyer DE, Merriam RL, Morris RC., Jr. Estimation of the net acid load of the diet of ancestral preagricultural Homo sapiens and their hominid ancestors. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2002;76(6):1308–1316. [PubMed]
3. Frassetto L, Morris, Jr. R.C. RC, Jr., Sellmeyer DE, Todd K, Sebastian A. Diet, evolution and aging—the pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet. European Journal of Nutrition. 2001;40(5):200–213. [PubMed]
4. Konner M, Boyd Eaton S. Paleolithic nutrition: twenty-five years later. Nutrition in Clinical Practice. 2010;25(6):594–602. [PubMed]
5. Lindeman RD, Goldman R. Anatomic and physiologic age changes in the kidney. Experimental Gerontology. 1986;21(4-5):379–406. [PubMed]
6. Reddy ST, Wang CY, Sakhaee K, Brinkley L, Pak CY. Effect of low-carbohydrate high-protein diets on acid-base balance, stone-forming propensity, and calcium metabolism. American Journal of Kidney Diseases. 2002;40(2):265–274. [PubMed]
Bill Sickert 