Importance of Increasing Alkaline

Nutrition
21

I really know little about it but it seems extremely unlikely that hair analysis would be useful for calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, or especially potassium.

That it can determine things such as exposure to lead, though, there’s no doubt. That is quite different though than trying to determine past dietary intake of substances which are ordinarily present in the blood in fairly narrow ranges.

Really the thing to do is to just look at what is consumed. The only tricky thing is that some of these, nutritional labels commonly fail to mention. This is quite often the case with phosphorus and potassium as probably the most common examples.

22

Add lime or lemon juice to all the water you drink throughout the day.

GJ

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[quote]Gymjunkie wrote:
Add lime or lemon juice to all the water you drink throughout the day.

GJ[/quote]

And why does this lower the PRAL score?

If you like doing the above, very good, but other than this, why used that method to achieve that means of lowering the PRAL score?

On the Greens Plus: not saying it’s a bad product, but why does it lower the PRAL score? Other than getting phytonutrients completely unrelated to the acid/base question, why would the Greens Plus be a better method of achieving those means of lowering the PRAL score than other methods?

(1: Principally because of providing potassium. Not out of any special property of lemons or limes. 2: Because of providing potassium, calcium, and magnesium, of which it is an expensive and not particularly convenient source. Not out of anything besides these.)

25

Greens is an awesome product. I drink it with all my protein shakes

26

Not entirely sure of the science. Ask Poliquin or any of his trainers. Thats who I have been advised by and for the reason that it keeps an athlete for alkaline during the day, more anabolic and lowers the GI of all food taken it. Plus water taste way better with a hint of lemon juice:)

GJ

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Not entirely sure of the science. Ask Poliquin or any of his trainers. Thats who I have been advised by and for the reason that it keeps an athlete for alkaline during the day, more anabolic and lowers the GI of all food taken it. Plus water taste way better with a hint of lemon juice:)

GJ

28

[quote]MikeyHDDS wrote:
Greens is an awesome product.[/quote]

Only if you think consuming things like grasses, bee pollen, royal jelly, and soy sprouts is awesome.

That and the main ingredient by far is lecithin, which while not a bad thing isn’t something I want in my greens product.

29

John Berardi recommends taking about 5 grams of sodium bicarbonate in the form of baking soda (I think) with protein shakes and other high-acid meals. i think club soda could work for this purpose as well…

however I seem to remember Bill Roberts talking about this subject and saying that it was nitpicking and not likely to make a difference…

someone please correct me if i’m wrong, im not known for the best memory…

30

[quote]youngblood52 wrote:
John Berardi recommends taking about 5 grams of sodium bicarbonate in the form of baking soda (I think) with protein shakes and other high-acid meals. i think club soda could work for this purpose as well…

however I seem to remember Bill Roberts talking about this subject and saying that it was nitpicking and not likely to make a difference…

someone please correct me if i’m wrong, im not known for the best memory…[/quote]

Did you read Bill’s posts earlier in this thread?

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[quote]Gymjunkie wrote:
Not entirely sure of the science. Ask Poliquin or any of his trainers. Thats who I have been advised by and for the reason that it keeps an athlete for alkaline during the day, more anabolic and lowers the GI of all food taken it. Plus water taste way better with a hint of lemon juice:)

GJ[/quote]

I just told you the science. But depending on the individual, a person providing correct information is not necessarily going to be listened to whatsoever.

32

Bill, good post.

If I remember correctly, glutamine was supposed to help alkalize the body. How does that sit with your post about mineral balance?

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Good point to raise.

It’s an example of how the PRAL method not only:

  1. even if it were correct based on actuality, doesn’t make a great deal of sense – it is in fact only a sum of subcomponents, and it’s illogical to argue that it’s desirable to have some or all of the subcomponents at non-optimal levels for the sake of getting a total score to a claimed but unproven optimal point or cutoff, but

  2. Isn’t a correct predictor.

Counting only the things that the method uses is wrong. E.g. sodium bicarbonate counts as zero.

Counting all proteins as the same is wrong. As you point out, glutamine is alkalinizing, so proteins high in glutamine would differ from those that are low in it.

Amino acids are simply hydrolyzed products of protein and so if a PRAL advocate wants to claim that glutamine isn’t in the protein category they are just playing word games, IMO. Conceptually it’s still wrong.

Counting, for example, total potassium as a predictor is wrong. E.g. I see no way that KCl affects acid/base balance but it is a powerful modifier of the PRAL score.

On the specific answer to your question: I don’t think that glutamine intake provides the slightest reason that one’s calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium intakes should vary in response.

If getting good amounts of the above minerals and electrolytes then I doubt one has an actual acid/base problem. Not because simply from running the PRAL calculation the score naturally comes out reasonable when that is the case (and not using that reason, because the PRAL method really is not valid, for the above reasons) but also because it just isn’t demonstrated that there is a problem.

I completely expect that the reasons a given person has tried “alkalinizing” their diet, as judged by PRAL score as it seems most advocating the alkalinity concern consider valid, and felt they benefited or felt they saw people that they advised to do so benefit from it, is because the mineral and electrolyte intake was improved and/or because of beneficial effects of phytonutrients.

It’s already been pointed out by many including myself that the body has no problem maintaining correct blood pH on any ordinary diet, and that the claims such as the body having to “leach calcium from the bones to correct for an acidic diet” and that sort of thing are just complete and utter nonsense.

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Thanks for that information. It’s always good to get to the basics when it comes to science topics with a lot of misconceptions.

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You’re welcome of course, and thank you for the kind comment.

It’s also always a pleasure to see that while for the most part it’s just pissing in the wind to point out problems and specific facts with popularly-claimed things,

There’s enough times that some do indeed as a result then weigh the facts as to make it worthwhile to provide an occasional counterbalance to those sorts of things. If no one ever did, then it wouldn’t be worthwhile :slight_smile:

36

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
It’s already been pointed out by many including myself that the body has no problem maintaining correct blood pH on any ordinary diet, and that the claims such as the body having to “leach calcium from the bones to correct for an acidic diet” and that sort of thing are just complete and utter nonsense.
[/quote]

I understand that the body maintaining correct pH levels is important, and that the body goes to large lengths to keep it in the ideal range. But i am curious about the research paper Berardi got published lately.

Instead of using pral scores they just used indicator paper to measure the pH of urine. Then they monitored the change after introduction of a greens supplement.

Heres the full study: [url]Plant based dietary supplement increases urinary pH | Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition | Full Text

Heres his laymans discussion: [url]http://www.precisionnutrition.com/ie-greens-supps-results[/url]

If measuring urine with indicator paper is a valid method, and the body is so great at managing pH, then why are these changes observed?

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I don’t believe it was said anywhere that the body strives to maintain urinary pH nor that urinary pH is constant or anything like it.

And most certainly urinary pH is affected by factors such as I discussed.

The problems are in assumptions made by others that benefits seen were due to changes in the body “not having to work as hard to deal with acid load” or some equivalently stated theory failing to keep into account that other things changed when the benefits were seen, particularly:

  1. Intake of minerals and electrolytes changed and this for reasons having nothing to do with “acid/base balance” may have provided the benefit

  2. Phytonutrient intake increased and this may have been the cause or a contributing cause of the benefit.

It’s an ASSUMPTION on their part that the cause was it being easier on the body to maintain proper blood pH.

If they measured blood pH they would find it was the same either way, with the Greens Plus or not, and so the idea that the rest of the body (other then the urine in the bladder) had its performance affected by acid/alkaline related effects is unproven, to say the least.

However, even if one wants to say they are convinced and nothing will change their mind that they need to alkalinize their diet, I think they will have a hard time refuting my point that going for non-optimal levels of the subcomponents that yield the acidifying and alkalinizing effects for the sake of getting a grand total that’s supposed to be optimal, doesn’t make sense.

Nor succeed in refuting that there isn’t magical “vegetableness” that causes given vegetable products to be alkalinizing: it is based on the components I mentioned which are included in the PRAL score, as an imperfect and in the case of amino acids and proteins and for example sodium bicarbonate, an incomplete accounting.

Nor succeed in successfully arguing that a food being low in protein and low in phosphorus is really inherently such a great thing making it necessary to consume such a food – but yet that’s a huge part in being rated high in alkalinizing effect.

Or that being a good source of phosphorus makes it a food to avoid.

And yeah, people really are avoiding or reducing grain intake, for example, because they fear it is acidifying, but the only reason they fear that, is because it is providing phosphorus that they need!

There are a lot of times that one needs to look at the components rather than bow down to a grand total, particularly when the grand total itself is in reference to what is not demonstrated to be a problem (urinary pH, and not blood pH because that is the same either way, with reference to ongoing daily living.)

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Hi guys, I don’t post here normally but this thread is bothering me a bit. Some points:

  1. PRAL - POTENTIAL renal acid load - is for getting a rough estimate of the PH load on your body. Remer and Manz (Germans, came up with PRAL) identified the five nutrients (that keep coming up in this discussion) as the five that control most ph fluctuation in human physiology.

  2. I think some people on here are having trouble accepting that healthy humans need real food: an unprocessed, balanced, mostly whole foods diet. The FDA says it, your trainer should be saying it, Berardi says it, and if you look closely, PRAL supports the same conclusion all over again. The same way oreos and cola aren’t right for humans, neither is refined protein.

Your body is designed for, and works best when you eat fresh fruits and veggies, nuts, legumes, grains and wild animals.

note to people who feel sick when they eat fruits/veggies: changes in ph are responsible for these uncomfortable feelings. If you stick to eating your fruits and veggies the discomfort should subside within a few days

PS: I totally work for Agribusiness. JK :stuck_out_tongue:

39

Bill, thank you for the posts. This whole acid/base thing finally makes some sense.

I laughed at “magic vegetableness”

40

[quote]yorik wrote:
Just so everybody understands, you cannot change your body pH by any mechanism that won’t kill you. The body requires a very narrow range of pH to function.

That said, the body will invoke extreme feedback measures to correct stimuli that might cause a pH imbalance. Problems arise when the extreme feedback measures in turn cause problems and throw other things out of whack. For example, the body will leach alkaline calcium from your bones if necessary to counteract acidity. Over the long term, removing calcium from the bones is a bad thing.

Berardi has written about this a lot. There should be an article here on T-Mag about the subject of acidity/alkalinity. Search for acidosis.

I suspect the benefit of baking soda is simply that it provides the body with sufficient raw materials to counteract acidity. Some people here in the past have sworn that taking some baking soda helps out when they’re sick. (I can’t attest to it myself.)

There has been some research that cancer cells are very acidic. In fact, scientists have observed that the body will deposit sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) around cancerous cells to kill them off, or protect surrounding cells.

There’s even a novel MRI technique in development that looks for tagged sodium bicarbonate molecules as a cancer detection technique. An Italian doctor suggests sodium bicarbonate as a cancer treatment, but there’s a lot of controversy over that, including a suspicious death from one of his patients from bicarbonate poisoning.

I guess some bicarbonate can’t hurt, but like anything else, don’t overdo it.[/quote]

The goal of eating alkaline isn’t to change your blood chemistry.