The alkaline diet is a myth!
The diet dogma pervades, this time it’s with the alkaline diet that promotes eating “alkaline” foods to help prevent the blood from becoming too acidic.
I recently listened to an online webinar given by a so-called nutrition “expert” who has studied many nutrition modalities and was promoting the notion of eating alkaline foods, mainly fruits and vegetables and some grains and legumes, in order to keep your blood pH healthy. Although she didn’t explicitly say this, her message was quite clear that she was not a fan of eating meat, dairy, or fermented foods because they are very “acidic.” She also mentioned that studies have shown that cancer cells grow in more acidic environments.
I walked away from the webinar quite irritated because here was yet another “expert” who speaks with a convincing voice of authority, yet is spreading false information that is not based in the truths of human physiology, but rather her own bias and misconceptions of how the human body actually works.
I mean, think about it— If that were true, most of us would likely be dead from eating a hamburger or omelet.
Let’s dig into why the alkaline diet doesn’t make sense from a physiological point of view and why your diet can’t affect your blood pH.
Our kidneys work extremely hard to maintain our blood pH
First off, the pH scale is 0-14, with 0 being the most acidic and 14 being the most alkaline. Our blood pH stays between a very tight range of 7.35- 7.45. The pH of our gastrointestinal tract varies depending on the location. Our saliva has a pH of an average of 6.7, and the stomach’s pH is highly acidic ranging from 1.5-3.5, 6 in the duodenum, and about pH 6 to 7.4 pH in the small intestine. The pH drops to 5.7 in the caecum, but again gradually increases, reaching pH 6.7 in the rectum. The pH of the gastrointestinal tract depends on the gut flora, digestive enzymes, and kidney function.
This brings me to my next important topic— kidney function. Our kidneys run a tight ship ensuring that our fluid balance and blood pH are rightly regulated. Unless you have chronic kidney disease, your blood pH should not be affected by the food you eat. PERIOD. Otherwise, you would die if you ate a hamburger and a soda. Think about it. The alkaline diet claims make no physiological sense. Also, oxidative stress and recent studies have also shown that the gut microbiome play a big role in chronic kidney disease.
And yes, I recognize that there is an association between the Western diet and chronic kidney disease, but that doesn’t surprise me because the Western diet is associated with most chronic and metabolic diseases. Yes, foods that contain more sulfur compounds such as animal protein, are more acidic than fruits and vegetables, but an adequate potassium intake should override any “acidic” meat consumption.
UNLIKE our blood, our urine pH can be affected by our diet. But that’s a whole different story than our blood as urine is a waste product. In the kidneys, citrate is metabolized to bicarbonate, which is the major buffer in the blood, and the amount of urinary citrate excretion is an adaptive physiologic response to alterations in acid–base balance. Moreover, besides diet, several metabolic and lifestyle factors such as BMI, diabetes, hypertension, gout, and smoking affect urine pH (in this case we’re talking about citrate excretion). Another study showed that lower urine pH of females with calcium-forming stones had higher urine pH which seemed related to be caused by decreased gut alkali absorption.
Interestingly, a study found that higher vitamin C intake in older men was associated with less urinary citrate excretion and therefore more acidic urine. So how diet affects people is not black and white. We are all unique individuals.
Yes, some foods are more acidic than others, but many of them include fruits! This is something that a lot of alkaline diet advocators don’t mention, which includes: citrus fruits, tomatoes, plums, grapes, pomegranates, pineapples, blueberries, and apples. According to Healthline.com which fact checks their info, unsweetened milk and yogurt are not acidic, and there is limited evidence about how the diet affects blood pH.
Studies in cancer cells don’t paint the whole picture
Studies that show cancer cells thrive in an acidic environment (low pH) do not represent the complexities of the human body as a whole. Those cancer cells were cultured in vitro, meaning in Petri dishes, in controlled lab environments, and do not accurately portray how tumor cells develop, grow, and survive in our bodies.
The alkaline diet is a proxy for healthy eating
It doesn’t take a molecular biologist or nutritionist to know that eating more fruits and vegetables and limiting processed foods is healthy. I think most of us intuitively know that eating foods closest to how nature created them is best for our bodies, whether we understand all the reasons why or not.
That said, no green juice is going to “save” your health. I don’t care which food guru or medical medium says this. There is no magic “cure-all” food. That’s not how nature works. Sorry folks.
There is more to health than food
I’ve noticed a lot of health and nutrition “experts” tend to become hyper-focused on just the food aspect of health rather than considering all the various factors that affect our health— relationships, our beliefs about food, our emotions, lifestyle, circadian rhythm regulation, stress levels, exercise, beliefs, trauma, etc.
So what’s happened is that a certain diet or way of eating might work for one person, but that doesn’t mean it works for the masses. Following a certain diet can become like a religion and lead to polarized viewpoints— carnivore or Paleo vs vegan and vegetarian diets, DASH diet vs AIP, Mediterranean vs Pescetarian, focusing on macronutrients vs intuitive eating.
Let me let you in on a little secret. There is no “perfect” diet, and what you eat now might not work for you in a month, year, or decade. As our bodies change, so do our nutritional needs. A lot of diet dogma is funded by major corporations who have financial interests in people eating more soy, corn, and wheat— big subsidies and mono-cropped vegetables that destroy the local ecosystem and soil microbiome. The bottom line is we all should be eating fruits and vegetables regardless of our eating habits or diet. And no, they don’t have to be raw or in juice form to reap the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables.
These diet dogmas also don’t take into account a person’s culture, socioeconomic status, or the healing power of expressing gratitude for your food and the joy of sharing a meal with loved ones. Quantum biology studies now show that humans obtain a large amount of energy from sunlight and the structured water in their cells and mitochondria that act like batteries. Yes. We don’t get all our energy from calories alone or even the ATP that our mitochondria make.
Next time you hear someone advocate for a diet trend or certain food, check in with your own body and intuition and see if that rings true for you. You know your body better than anyone.
Sources
https://www.healthline.com/health/acid-foods-to-avoid%23prevention
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10421978/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31725012/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800408/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7052659/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33741720/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6293293/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32873953/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7052659/
