by IJ » Fri Oct 15, 2010 1:10 am
Saterraji, I'm having a hard time getting behind your statement that:
"95% of all degenerative diseases represent an overall acidic condition in the blood and fluids. This can be easily tested by the use of litmus paper with a ph range of 6.0 to 8.5."
Working in internal medicine I can guarantee you that almost all of our patients have a pH controlled within a very narrow range (7.4 plus or minus .04), even while they are sick enough to be in the hospital, often on the verge of ICU transfer. Patients with common degenerative concerns like low back pain and arthritis will not have any detectable pH issues. Why is this? If your body is exposed to large amounts of acid (or base), the kidneys can compensate. They push out extra amounts of NH4(+) to remove the extra acid (in the form of protons). Even if the kidneys have failed, your pH is balanced quite well by your lungs. Carbon dioxide is produced from metabolism and excreted by the lungs. In solution in water, it is in equilibrium and contributes to acidity. Luckily CO2 can be tightly controlled and easily exhaled. When you double your ventilation, you halve your CO2, thereby removing acid and balancing your pH. Thus even people with unusual acid loads in their blood have a very normal pH which they accomplish by breathing a bit faster, often not noticing the difference. When you measure the pH of the URINE, you are getting a picture of acid excretion but not current blood pH.
Many issues effect the urine pH; for example, if you have to excrete X amount of acid daily from metabolizing proteins and whatnot, and you make a liter of urine, it will contain X amount of acid per liter. If you merely double your urine output by doubling your fluid intake, you will HALVE the concentration of acid in the urine without changing either your blood pH or your acid excretion overall.
We also EXPECT acid urine because the body makes acid as a waste product. This is normal. One can consume an equal and opposite amount of alkali to neutralize this acid, but there is no proven benefit and the kidney is adapted to remove acid waste. Potential side effects besides cost include lack of effectiveness of the acid barrier to infection in the stomach, and such conditions as the milk alkali syndrome, in which alkali diets high in calcium (eg CaCO3, or "tums") causes high calcium levels which can be dangerous.
Incidentally, soft drinks and sports drinks' high fructose corn syrup and carbonation do not turn into phosphoric acid. Fructose is C6H12O6; carbonation is CO2. The carbonation one breathes off immediately (although before that happens, it can theoretically damage teeth, so...). Fructose is metabolized into CO2 and water. Obviously one cannot create the element phosphorous from carbon, hydrogen, or water. Unless you have a star handy. The phosphoric acid is added as an ingredient, instead, and it's purpose is to produce a pleasingly acid (tangy sour) taste. This is only done with colas, and other acids are used in citrus drinks.
On Bill's forum we were warned the excess phosphoric acid may damage bones by leaching calcium, preventing calcium absorption, and replacing healthier foods. It may also promote chronic kidney disease. I have therefore moved to severely limit my cola intake and I take two tums with each now (calcium and phosphorous bind in the gut and are excreted; the carbonate in tums neutralizes the extra acid). And I don't consume much corn syrup, either, as I make most of my food and don't buy stuff with it in there. I use diet sodas instead. A "real sugar" soda is not a solution; it has sucrose which is 50% fructose which is nearly the same content and have plenty of calories.
There are real reasons to avoid these products but "alkalizing" isn't one.
--Ian