Articles about acid/alkaline balance have been prominent in the news for a long time. Every spruiker worth their blog or YouTube channel have had something to say about it. They all say that you ought to include alkaline foods in your diet; that is, food with a ph above 7 to stay healthy and that acidic food can harm your body and cause illness.
There are two ways to investigate this, the ancient way of observation and the scientific way of biochemistry. Let’s look at how they fulfil each other to gain some better understanding of the issue. Traditional medicine describing cause and effect and science describing what happens in between.
Acid/Alkaline balance theory: from Traditional Medicine
In ancient times they did a lot of observation of cause and effect, before and after, and then filled in the void in between with theories that they found meaningful drawing on culture and context. They observed that eating alkaline food kept you healthy. How come?
How science proves traditional medicine right
What has science taught us about the biochemistry of digestion. Touching only on the aspects that are relevant to our topic, we can notice that when food reaches the stomach , the parietal cells in the lining starts to secrete large amounts of hydrochloric acid, hcl, to ensure that nothing leaves the stomach at a ph of more than 4.2. This helps to break down food and kills any pathogens, disease causing particles or organisms that may be on the foods we eat.
How come this mixture, the chime, does not burn a hole on the duodenum? Because of the pancreas.
The pancreas does not only produce insulin to regulate the blood sugar and several enzymes to assist digestion, it secretes an alkaline liquid of water and sodium bicarbonate to neutralise the acidic chime: HCL + NaHCO3 = NaCl + H2CO3.
What this means is that the carbonic acid equilibrates with carbon dioxide and water and after the release of CO2 you have the net result of water H2O.
Why is this significant and why does it support the observations of the ancients? Not because all your tissue and body liquids become alkaline – they do not and this would make you very sick – but because you attain a healthy flow of liquid in the body.
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