Health/ Nutrition

Are you pH Balanced?

I recently attended a lecture given by a young woman promoting her new healthy food business who shared some of the concepts she learned after going through a 3-month program on nutrition. She proceeded to draw a line on the chalk board with two arrows going in opposite directions and then wrote “neutral” in the middle. After writing down a few different foods under each arrow she told us that if we eat these foods our body will become acidic and we’ll likely end up with all kinds of diseases, including diabetes, osteoporosis and cancer and if we eat the other foods we’ll enjoy life-long vitality. Can you guess what foods were in each category? Yes, my Vegan friends, of course you can. But is it really that simple?

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that the acid-alkaline theory of disease is not a proven science but rather a theory or hypothesis.

The Proposed Science Supporting the Theory

Acidity and Alkalinity are measured according to the pH (potential of hydrogen) scale. Water is considered to be neutral at 7.0. Anything less than 7.0 is considered to be acidic and anything greater than 7.0 is alkaline. The ideal pH for the human body is 7.35-7.45. The basic theory is that every food we eat leaves some kind of residue (or ash) after it is fully digested which is either acid-forming or alkaline-forming in nature. The belief is that if you eat too many acid-forming foods that our blood and tissues will be affected and will put us in a state of chronic low-grade acidosis. This chronic condition is believed to cause a number of health problems such as osteoporosis, kidney disease, kidney stone formation and muscle wasting. However, since our body is equipped with buffering capabilities, our blood pH will vary only a small degree regardless of diet. What is often measured instead is the urine’s pH which can range from 4.5 to 8.0 and can change by the day, if not the hour. Proponents believe that if a person’s urine pH shows a highly acidic value over time that the systems that are recruited to facilitate this buffering will become strained and will result in significant stress to the systems, causing immune function to falter.

What Foods Go On What List And Why?

Examples of acid-forming foods are meat, milk, grains, certain kinds of nuts, all sweeteners, beer, liquor, coffee, fruit juice, vinegar, soy sauce, processed and canned foods, etc. Other reported causes of increasing the acidity in your body are stress and anxiety. Alkaline-forming foods are thought to be vegetables, legumes, seeds while fruits and brown rice and wheat are considered “okay in moderation”. Incidentally, I looked up a list of foods from two other sources and their lists didn’t match with this one. For instance, one says that lentils are highly alkaline and the other said they were highly acidic. The same discrepancy was found for foods like buckwheat, molasses, lima beans, various types of fruits and nuts, etc. The source noted on the first list was from Back to the House of Health by Shelley Redford Young, coauthor of The pH Miracle with her husband Dr. Robert Young. I called their company to ask where the list came from and their answer was that Dr. Young himself tested each food using a pH meter after blending the foods down. The other two lists were not sourced.

So Who’s Right?

Naturopathic medicine has used the acid-alkaline balance as a theoretical model to explain the foundation of many diseases for years and Allopathic medicine has examined pH in specific organ systems such as the kidney to control the formation of stones. Furthermore, many books have been written on this theory and a lot of money has been made selling people “alkalizing water” but as far as I could tell no research has ever been conducted or published to test this theory’s validity. Dr. Robert Young, the main proponent of this movement as of late has written several books on the subject but he has not published any scientific evidence nor is he a licensed health practitioner. He was also written up on Quack watch. (see below for a link to the article) because so many of his claims were found to be faulty, two law suits were filed against him for diagnosing and prescribing treatment and there appears to be several holes in the extensive education he claims to have. On the other side, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, who thinks the acid-alkaline theory of disease is “nonsense” explains that strong stomach acids render all food acidic until it moves into the intestinal track, where secretions from the pancreas neutralize it into alkalinity. He goes on to say that he agrees that cancer cells, for instance, cannot survive in alkaline liquid but neither can any of the other cells in your body.

While the pH balancing hypothesis has never been adequately tested and proven there are some things we do know like the fact that a high protein diet can increase bone loss. Another found that test tube studies show some cancer cells multiply faster in an acidic environment while some chemotherapy drugs working better in an alkaline environment.

Final Thoughts

In the field of health and nutrition, one must keep an open mind and consider that there is by far more that we are yet to discover than what has been definitively proven. Fellow blogger Rebecca Bragg said it well when she reflected on how some doctors passionately criticize any practitioner who would tell you that you’re eating too many acid-forming foods based on your urine pH “and yet if that same practitioner advises you that in order to stay healthy and protect yourself against disease you should eat more plant foods and avoid animal products (the fundamental basis for the alkaline diet), wouldn’t most doctors call that excellent advice?”

The reality of it is that when you’re desperately ill or tired of being overweight there’s a tendency to believe that hope can be purchased. If this is you and someone is telling you that their diet, supplement, water etc. is miraculous then watch out. That being said there’s usually some semblance of truth in what they’re preaching (i.e. “Eat more green vegetables and less processed foods!”). You can read hundreds, even thousands of testimonials of people who have benefited from getting “pH balanced” but I’m guessing that a lot of those people were living off of junk food, animal products and soda. And as far as I’m concerned Vegans already have a huge leg up on this issue just by your lifestyle choice alone. In other words don’t give up lentils just because some list says you should!

Resources

Prescription for Nutritional Healing, fifth edition. Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier
Acid and Alkaline Food Chart from Balance pH Diet website. www.balance-ph-diet.com/acid_alkaline_food_chart.htm.
Acid-Alkaline Balance :Role of Chronic Disease and Detoxification. Deanna Minich, PhD, FACN, CNS; Jeffrey S. Bland, PhD, FACN. Alternative Therapies, July/Aug 2007, Vol. 13, No. 4.
Does a pH Balancing Diet Work? Monica Reinagel, M.S., L.D.N. May 13, 2009. www.nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/acid-alkaline-diet.aspx
Akaline vs.Acidic Foods and Cancer. Rebecca Bragg, July 21, 2011. www.livestrong.com/article/548779-alkaline-vs-acidic-foods-and-cancer/
A Critical Look at “Dr” Robert Young’s Theories and Credentials. Stephen Barrett, M.D. Quack Watch, May 12, 2011. http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/young3.html