Alkalize your body? You’ve got to be kidding me…
January 12th, 2008
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This one of those quackery concepts which just makes me shake my head in disbelief. According to a bunch of “alternative medicine” pushers out there the reason for the problem with obesity in modern society is not overeating and not enough activity. No, it’s that our bodies are too acidic. This, it turns out, is the same reason nearly every health problem exists. And furthermore, they claim that the only way to fix this problem is to “alkalize” the body with “alkaline water” or other products
Now first of all, there’s no such thing as “alkaline water” because water, by definition is neutral. It’s possible if you added something to it, like lime or something that it would then be alkaline, but that’s really nothing amazing. You could just as easily take a Tums tablet or Rolaids. There are certainly foods which are acidic, but they don’t make the tissues in you’d body acidic. And it’s not what this guy lists either. Vinegar, orange juice, citrus fruits, tomatoes and that sort of thing contains a fair amount of acid.
Furthermore, there’s a lot more acidic biological chemicals than alkaline ones. For example, amino acids and DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). So making your body an alkaline environment is not really something which would be good for such compounds. But even if you wanted to make your body less acidic, there’s not really much you can do. Sure, you can change the PH of your stomach by taking an antacid, but that’s only a temporary thing. And it’s also something you probably don’t want to overdo, especially if you don’t have heardburn to begin with. (Trust me on this one. I once took way too much antacid by mistake… it was not fun having an alkaline stomach. Really… very not good.)
So why do these quacks harp on acid? Why not say “make your body more acidic”? That actually, in many ways, would make more sense. (note: It would not be valid either, but it would be a bit more dependable.) It’s probably simply the fact that the public thinks of the word “acid” as being destructive/dangerous/harmful. For one thing, acid reflux is not good, and it’s always a vat of acid that the Joker has Batman teetering over. So acid must be the worst stuff around. Well in reality, a very strong alkaline (or base) can be just as bad or even worse if you’re exposed to it.
But if you still want to believe this guy, and you really need to “alkalize your body” then I’d suggest you stop messing around with the foods he recommends (which aren’t even alkaline) and just cut to the chase and use what we have here. It is, after all, plenty alkaline. (No.. don’t actually do that.)
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Not Even Wrong, Obfuscation, Quackery, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Just wanted to add. I just googled this and found the following blurb for another similar video:
Too much acid in the body is the root cause of all illness and disease. Alkalinity = Good. Healthy bodies have high alkalinity and not acid. Acid is the cause of all pain and health issues. Alkaline can react with acid and neutralize. Go for alkaline and health will improve dramatically as soon as the acid is removed from your system.
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
There is a normal pH value in each body compartment (i.e. extracellular fluid, plasma, intracellular fluid etc). Intracellular pH may vary in different types of cells and in different parts of cells. Acid-base balance is precisely controlled, because even a minor deviation from the normal range can arrest metabolic processes and severely affect many organs.
This balance is controlled first by the fact that most body fluids are buffered, and second by controlling CO2 load via respiration, and third by the kidneys. These systems will override ant attempt to drive the pH of your body down to the point where they are overloaded and you die.
This quackery is not only stupid, it is dangerous to the extreme should some fool attempt to do it for real.
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Yes you’re correct. I didn’t feel like getting into it very deeply, but there is obviously no single pH of the body. There are various fluids, cells and systems, each of which is going to have a very different pH depending on what it is any many other conditions.
It’s a dramatic oversimplification to say that the body is acidic or basic. The chemistry of the body is far more complex than that. But it would be foolish to try to change it dumbly by adding an acid or base to the system.
What makes this guy all the more dumb is that these foods are not, strictly speaking, even alkaline. But that might be a good thing. Actually trying to consume alkaline like crazy will first mess up your digestive tract. If your stomach went alkaline your body would try to compensate by producing much more digestive acids. Your blood or other fluids.. it would be even worse!
So yea, I didn’t go into all the details. But this is no good!
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Okay a bit more info I found about this guy: He’s not actually a doctor at all. He got his MS and PhD in research biology and nutrition from a diploma mill that was disbanded a few years ago after a number of complaints and some fraud accusations.
The only college he actually has is that he studied business with a minor in biology in the early 1970’s but apparently did not complete his degree. He is not published in any peer reviewed journals, he’s not been a major participant in any mainstream research studies and is not a member of any major scientific or medical organizations.
The “Alkaline” or “Acid” content of food he is pushing is not actually the food itself, which you could easily test with litmus paper. He claims that the body matabolizes foods it burns them down to an ash level.
Thus the acidity of the food is measured on how it “forms acid or alkaline” from the ash resedue. Although it seems this is not tested directly. I think he just makes it up. In any case, this is obvious bull since much of the food passes through the system and only certain components are absorbed.
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January 13th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
It bothers me a lot less what this guy is saying than the fact that he got on CNN like that and nobody checked out the background or his credentials. They could have done a simple Google search or checked wikipedia. I know the media rarely investigates this stuff like it is supposed to, but I still wish they would do more. Especially because this is CNN. It’s not that I have infinite trust in them, but this crap usually shows up on local news, not a major network.
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January 14th, 2008 at 12:19 am
So I need to buy this guy’s book to find out what is alkaline and what is acid? Oh that makes sense. It’s not like there’s just some “litmus test” you can do for pH. Um.. I might be wrong on that one actually.
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January 14th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Think it’s the coverage that’s bad? Just look at the youtube comments on this thing. People are eating this up and if somebody calls it quackery then they get jumped on by the mob of idiots. People buy into this stuff without knowing the first thing about it. Somebody needs to send them to a chemistry 101 class.
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January 14th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
This could mean that my frequent binge drinking has been keeping me slim and healthy!
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January 15th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Yeah, so this guy apparently says you need “alkaline foods” only by his definition. If you actually took it literally then I’d assume you’d just down a lot of baking soda or something. Of course that might not be so healthy so he’s made up his own definition of “alkaline” what a jackass. I can’t believe he can say this with a straight face.
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January 16th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Idiotic
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