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Acid in the gut created by a diet of food that generates acid supposedly leaches calcium from our bones. Hence the thinking is that one should eat foods that shift the balance to the alkaline side. There are many proponents to this approach.
But if one is taking supplemental calcium into the gut, why aren't our bones protected regardless of acid/alkaline balance? That is use the gut calcium and "leave my bones alone".
Look at the recent LA Times article on bone health and diet.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-nutrition24-2009aug24,0,544426 5.story
They suggest that going to an alkaline diet MAY only improve the bones structure by a few percent.
The acid/alkaline diet appears to be another gimmick to sell books or products.
Stu
Eamenard -- If you are concerned about an acid diet, there is an OTC product called "Prelief," which takes the acid out of foods but leaves your stomach acid, which you need, alone. Prelief is available at many drugstores and on-line. You can also get a lot of information about it by Googling it. Another suggestion (but I can't vouch for the safety of this one) is to dissolve a half teaspoon of non-aluminum baking soda is a glass of water, let it sit and dissolve, drink it on down and also take a grapefruit seed extract tablet. Both of the latter are available on-line. I don't know if baking soda is dangerous for the bones; in general, antacids are not recommended. If anyone has the answer to this one, let's hear it!
I would be most interested to hear other peoples comments on this, I am trying my best to keep my diet alkaline and its not easy as Im diabetic as well. Im reading books about acid/alkaline diets as well.
Hope someone can clear this up!!
Dear Stu:
I think your post about the LA article says it all. Don't think I need to go down the diet path.
Thanks
"Salge-Blake says the evidence on low-acid diets is also no reason to abandon sources of calcium and vitamin D, which are still crucial for bone health. "Bones lose calcium when the diet is too high in protein," she says, "but studies suggest that if there's enough calcium in the diet to offset this, it shouldn't be a problem.""
Dear bonnytiz:
Hope you read the LA Times article and forget about the acid/alkaline diet. It is a red herring from what I have read.
I just read the LA Times article and it has convinced me I'm doing the right thing by being on an Alkaline/Acid (80%/20%) diet. A diet consisting largely of fruit and vegetables is good for overall health not just the bones. I don't see how such a diet is a red herring.
What I cant understand is that, if milk isnt good for us and is acid why is it that babies are brought up on it from birth, it being their only sustenance. All through their young life they are encouraged to have diary products to protect their bones, I can remember (many moons ago) being given free milk at school.
I was speaking to a herbalist about this and she said to continue having milk as part of a varied diet,as long as you have plenty of fruit and veg it wouldnt be a problem.
I am taking her advice, I some how feel as though I am helping my bones if I have some milk every day. I dont eat cheese though, even she said that cheese wasnt a good thing.
Bonnytiz, why isn't cheese a good thing? I am wondering because I eat low fat cheese for snacks because of the calcium. Thanks for any info....
Dear Virginia:
It is a Red Herring if you are lead to believe that it will save your bones. There are so many "myths" about Osteo, one needs to concentrate on those that are of more benefit.
I agree that fruits and vegatables are good for overall health but I am not going the lithmus paper route to calibrate my daily PH nor is it worth going to other diet extremes. But we can all do what we like.
Prunes seem to me to be another extreme but they might help in other ways-like regularity. But what nutrients in prunes excite those little guys that make and tear down bone?? Is there research behind this idea?
Hi Eamenard
I appreciate your comments and I hope mine didn't come across as blunt or rude.
I agree it isn't worth going to extremes. I was doing the Litmus test daily for a while but that in itself became stressful so now I do it occasionally to see how I'm going. One good thing came out of the Acid/Akaline diet for me. Until I started this diet I was plagued with Migraines and I haven't had one since.
The 80% alkaline / 20% acid diet, along with weight bearing exercise and sunlight, did the trick for me. Whereas I was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis a few years ago, I now no longer worry about it at all. Not only did my overall health improve on this diet, but my bone-making process was proven to work admirably when I fractured my shoulder in a bike accident and the break healed in record time! I have a website devote to the 80% alkaline / 20% acid diet, which I am not allowed to post here because of the rules of this blog. If you care to email me at kathleen_alford@yahoo.com, I will give you the link. It is important to remember that the blood must maintain a 7.38 pH level (alkaline) in order to function properly, and the blood will do whatever it must to maintain that pH level, even if it means leaching calcium from the bones. Keeping the blood at the proper alkaline pH level keeps acid blood from damaging organs, too. The alkaline diet, along with weight bearing exercise and sunlight, is the best thing that ever happened to my health! (Incidentally, the pH level of breast milk is between 7.2-7.4. See the research at http://www.childresearch.net/SCIENCE/KOBY/FUTURE/cbse0007.html.)
Interesting replies again, this is a good topic and very thought provoking.
Willie, I dont know very much about all this, being quite new to this condition, but I have always understood that cheese is very acid forming, I dont know if its any more so that milk, its just that my herbalist friend has always told me to steer clear of it, strange though that she doesnt say the same about milk, maybe cheese goes through a different process!
Have you seen the articles about prunes being good for the bones, thats another one that defies the acid/alkali (if its true) I found this when I googled it:-
Q. You list prunes as being an “acid-forming food.” So how can they help bones?
A. We have to remember that foods have many qualities, and not all acid-forming foods are bad for bones. In fact, protein is acid forming and yet adequate protein is essential for optimum bone health. Although prunes are slightly acid-forming, they contain phenolic and flavonoid plant compounds, which increase bone growth factors, so overall their impact on bone is very positive.
I eat them because they help to keep me regular, everything in moderation I say!!
Earngard... that is really interesting that you aren't having migraines anymore. I have migraines ... and sinus headahes. Maybe I should look into this diet more.....
Sorry... the post regarding the migraines should have been addressed to Verginia. Darn eyeglasses!
Dear KathleenAlford:
Well, this Osteo stuff is very confusing. You were doing 3 things to improve your bone health. First off, do you even have a problem with weak bones. DEXA doesn't really tell us about the quality of our bones and our fracturabilty. So how do we really know if what we are doing is correct?
For me at least, the acid/akaline argument doesn't make much sense. But if it helps you in a postive way, then go for it. Managing ones food intake is quite a task and it appears that is of no benefit. You take acid food in your gut and then take calcium into your gut so why does your system need to go and rob the calcium from our bones to offset the acid food?
Willie1
Yes, being Migraine free is an amazing and wonderful side effect of the Acid/Alkaline diet.
My diet was previously very acid which obviously caused the Migraines. I started this diet a few weeks ago to help my bones. It isn't difficult once you get used to it.
My freezer is now full of vegetable broth which I cook with organic vegetables. The bought broths contain too much salt. I use small amounts of Celtic sea salt. I heat some up every day and add vegetables and garlic which is high alkaline, this enables me to have some bread with it. I make my own Almond milk and a Carrot and Raisin Quinoa Bread which is alkaline. The recipe is from www.susanjanemurray.com.
I've been eating out a lot lately which presents a problem. When I get home and test my urine it is very acid so I sip a cup of lemon juice or organic apple cider vinegar (through a straw to protect teeth) and the next morning I test alkaline again.
Kathleen Alford has generously given her email address in order to obtain her link. Check it out, Willie1, her eating plan is much better than mine.
you don't eat - you die.
That in it's simplest is the reason food and what kind of food you ingest matters.
Back in the 1970's there was this idea that anything you took in your body would do with it what it needed to keep you going. Hence the U.S. government allowed products that had been regarded as non-foods to become food. That is an interesting history if anyone cares to take a look at it.
The subsequent 35 years have enlightened us to the significance of how important what you eat is for optimum health. Optimum is what is key here... people don't want to live long, they want to live healthily.
As for the pH argument... the normal pH of the blood is 7.35 to 7.45 - it is a very narrow window. The pH in other parts of the body varies. The pH throughout the digestive tract varies considerably to enable different foods to be processed in different parts and hence nutrients to be absorbed from different locations.
It is totally reasonable to extrapolate from this that we need a variety of foods to accomplish different functions in our body and that our homeostatic mechanism will "take" from different parts of our bodies to enable other areas to function at their optimum.
The body is pretty smart in spite of us but we can mislead it and create situations where we are put into deficits and about the only way that can happen is taking in too much or too little or getting rid of too much or too little.
Check out "feedback loops" in the body.
Finally, there will be people for whom this %80 base%20 acid combination will be like a miracle, for some it will be ineffective but for the majority the recommendations of trying to eat more vegetables (and a variety) and fruit and less meat and "acid" food is just plain good advice and not contrary to most nutritionist recommendations.
None of this says don't eat these things - it just says less. They are just as essential and even more so in some ways because it takes less to make an impact.
Think outside the box.
I have to make one further comment;
children were breast fed for years - historically milk from cows was consumed raw and not processed.
Even Pasteur claimed it was a mistake to pasteurize milk... the nutrients and enzymes necessary to make it tolerated by humans are removed and it becomes very difficult to digest and creates (in some people) disease.
Just a side note to all this--for years my diet has consisted mostly of fruits, vegetables and whole grains with minimal intakes of meat; yet, I was diagnosed with severe osteo last year. I have seen others on this board that are life-time vegetarians who have osteo. My point? There are a lot of book vendors out there who make money off their theories. I'm a writer and I know--if you don't have a gimmick, you cannot sell. So it's a good idea to take what you read with a grain of salt.
Speaking of salt--that brings to light a good example of what's out there for us to swallow or not swallow. It's popular to believe that sea salt has less sodium than table salt. Reality is "Salt is salt." The chemical compound has to be the same or it is not salt. True, sea salt will contain various trace minerals that have been refined out of table salt (hmmmm... wonder if there might be some trace of a mineral in there that is NOT good for the body!) But basically, the two products are the same except for taste (due to trace minerals) and texture. Yet, many manufacturers of food products are now tauting the use of sea salt as a reason their product is superior. I've even seen sea salt recommended for people on low-sodium diets!
We have a term for that--it's called advertising. So it may be wise to be careful about believing what we read.
Everything we see advertised has to be taken with a grain of salt... every pun intended.
We have to do some research to see how much validation there is behind the comments being made.
We mustn't forget we are all individuals and our bodies do not respond all the same. Some people thrive on a vegetarian diet some wither away. It comes down to knowing yourself.
I have not seen any claims that vegetarianism prevents osteoporosis - proponents just believe it is a better way of life.
However, it is pretty clear some people really do better with meat in their diet. It again is a question of how much.
As for salt and sugar being salt and sugar regardless of their form, well that is just plain wrong. Trace elements (apparently said with a sneer) are VERY significant for some people. Remember Vitamin D has undergone an incredible evolution in the past few years.
Rather it hasn't, but our understanding of it has.
IF sugar is a problem for you or salt is a problem then in ANY form they are likely going to BE a problem.
If you aren't bothered by either, then you might be better off taking a whole form of the salt or sugar... that is unrefined.
On a purely personal note of experience, refined salt makes me extremely thirsty and then I retain that fluid.
I have no BP problems so I haven't had to discontinue salt. Using sea salt doesn't impact on my thirst, nor do
I retain fluid.
I can't help but wonder if I had kept on refined salt and kept retaining fluid if I would have had a BP issue?
That is a study that won't be done so the only answer will be personal experience.
I do agree however that to say any form of salt is acceptable on a low sodium diet is misplaced advertising.
correction - it seems to me that when people are trying to trash sea salt or honey or maple syrup, it seems "trace elements" is said with mockery... as if it is the new hook..
Maybe it is being used that way, which is unfortunate, but a rule of thumb, the smaller the amount needed to make a difference, the smaller the amount needed to poison, the more significant the element in over all body function.
we are only at the beginning of understanding of what small amounts of any trace elements do...
do people know what Vitamin D is measured in?
The normal range is 30.0 to 74.0 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL)
1 nanogram = 1.0 × 10-9 grams or put this way -
How many nanograms / ml in 1 grams / ml?
The answer is 1000000000.
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