You might have heard of the alkaline diet? It seems to be one of the nutrition and health trends over the past 10+ years, mainly through social media articles and so-called nutrition gurus. But is it really good for you and your health?
You might be a bit shocked at this info... but the only person who seems to have benefited from the alkaline diet is the author of the book who created this controversial advice. Dr Robert Young wrote a book on the alkaline diet, called The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health, in 2002. It quickly became a bestseller and made him lots of money, mainly as it was completely new and wasn't something that people had been told before.
But it was mostly BS. And his advice and recommendations caused a lot of harm to a lot of people.
Young's work and treatments provided at his US-based ranch, were based on the theory that acidity in the body is the cause of disease, and that an alkaline diet is the answer (Financial Review, 2018). But the acidity/alkaline theory was only based on misinformation and misunderstandings of previous studies.
If like me, you frequently see health related social media posts saying that you should eat alkaline foods or drink alkalised water (such as baking soda drinks), or to alkalise your body to improve your health, or even prevent cancer, because (allegedly) cancer cannot survive in an alkaline body... ignore them! These posts are completely wrong!
If you actually follow or implement those ideas, then please read this and consider the real facts, because you may actually be doing your body and your health more harm than good. Sorry...
The facts are:
- acidity or alkalinity is measured on the pH scale from 0 (highly acidic) to 7 (neutral) to 14 (highly basic or alkaline)
- your body has different pH in different fluids and organs for good reasons
- your body only works well within a small pH range for that particular organ or fluid, for example, blood pH should be within 7.35 and 7.45; a very small range, outside of which YOU DIE
- your saliva or urine pH (from test strips etc) bears no resemblance of what is going on in the rest of your body
- various areas of the body MUST be acidic, to repel bacteria, virus, parasite and yeast infections, such as on your skin and in your stomach and gastrointestinal, urinary and reproductive tracts. These microbes actually LIKE an alkaline environment and thrive in it!
- the stomach being highly acidic will digest foods into their smaller components, which are no longer acidic or alkaline... Hence the foods you eat do NOTHING to either acidify or alkalise your body
- your body has 5 pH buffering (ie, balancing) systems to keep various organs of fluids within the small pH range necessary for optimal function. Consuming too much acidic foods or drinks will simply be balanced out with production of more alkaline compounds and increased excretion of the acids! Or the opposite - if consuming just alkaline foods, this will be countered by the body making more acid compounds to bring the organ or tissues into correct balance again!
- there is the public perception that cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment, and therefore why we need to eat and drink more alkaline products and avoid acidic foods. The real fact is that cancer cells have a disordered metabolism and only produce energy via a process called glycolysis, from which a major by-product is lactate, also called lactic ACID! Hence it is the cancer cells producing the acidic environment, NOT the acidic environment causing the cancer...
Then there's my (least) favourite social media health advice of recommending drinking alkalised water with bicarbonate (baking soda) to prevent disease and cancer! This comes from old research from an Italian cancer Doctor Tullio Simoncini who produced research that he killed cancer cells with alkaline baking soda. HOWEVER, he INJECTED baking soda into tumours, and found this killed cancer cells. BUT it isn't actually the alkalinity which kills the cancer cells, but by the "osmotic shift" in fluid from within the cancer cells into the higher alkaline fluid injected into the tumour. The cancer cells became damaged, then dehydrated and died as a result.
Unfortunately people have just taken the "baking soda kills cancer cells" headline and run off with the idea that baking soda and alkalinity can be taken in any form as a cheap and simple cancer prevention or treatment! Nothing could be further from the truth.
Drinking baking soda water will hit your stomach and neutralise some of the stomach acid! This will reduce the effectiveness of the acidic stomach to kill bacteria and viruses and other pathogens (leading to more infections), AND reduce the amount of digestion of foods that the stomach can break down, which in turn means a reduced absorption of digested nutrients which your body really needs, and in turn your entire body and health will suffer. Your stomach needs to be highly acidic in order to properly break down carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins B9 (folate), B12, iron, and to release many minerals which you can then absorb and use. If you don't have enough acidity in your stomach, you won't absorb these nutrients and your health will suffer.
Alkaline foods can be very healthy, but so can acidic foods (tomatoes, citrus, pineapple, and many others). Just because some foods are acidic doesn't mean they are bad, and similarly, just because some foods are alkaline doesn't mean they are healthy! To be healthy, you need to eat a variety of foods, and not restrict your intake based on an incorrect assumption or misinterpretation of a story based on a food's pH level!
Anyway, back to Dr Young... He was recently ordered to pay US$105 MILLION (AUD$146 Million) in damages to just one of his clients, for misrepresenting himself as a medical doctor (which he isn't!), having fraudulent PhD qualifications from a unaccredited institution, recommending a client to stop their medical treatment for cancer to instead do his alkaline treatments which didn't work and the person's cancer progressed to Stage 4 (Financial Review, 2018). As well as the massive fine, he was disqualified from practicing, forced to admit publicly that he isn't a medical doctor or a scientist, and sentenced to several months in jail.
The alkaline diet is a hoax, non-scientific, and completely ridiculous. At best it is useless, but could be quite dangerous for your health.
Stay balanced, and healthy!
References:
Financial Review. (2018). pH Miracle author Robert Young ordered to pay cancer patient $US105 million. Retrieved 6th February 2022 from https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/ph-miracle-author-robert-young-ordered-to-pay-cancer-patient-us105-million-20181105-h17i9u
You might be a bit shocked at this info... but the only person who seems to have benefited from the alkaline diet is the author of the book who created this controversial advice. Dr Robert Young wrote a book on the alkaline diet, called The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health, in 2002. It quickly became a bestseller and made him lots of money, mainly as it was completely new and wasn't something that people had been told before.
But it was mostly BS. And his advice and recommendations caused a lot of harm to a lot of people.
Young's work and treatments provided at his US-based ranch, were based on the theory that acidity in the body is the cause of disease, and that an alkaline diet is the answer (Financial Review, 2018). But the acidity/alkaline theory was only based on misinformation and misunderstandings of previous studies.
If like me, you frequently see health related social media posts saying that you should eat alkaline foods or drink alkalised water (such as baking soda drinks), or to alkalise your body to improve your health, or even prevent cancer, because (allegedly) cancer cannot survive in an alkaline body... ignore them! These posts are completely wrong!
If you actually follow or implement those ideas, then please read this and consider the real facts, because you may actually be doing your body and your health more harm than good. Sorry...
The facts are:
- acidity or alkalinity is measured on the pH scale from 0 (highly acidic) to 7 (neutral) to 14 (highly basic or alkaline)
- your body has different pH in different fluids and organs for good reasons
- your body only works well within a small pH range for that particular organ or fluid, for example, blood pH should be within 7.35 and 7.45; a very small range, outside of which YOU DIE
- your saliva or urine pH (from test strips etc) bears no resemblance of what is going on in the rest of your body
- various areas of the body MUST be acidic, to repel bacteria, virus, parasite and yeast infections, such as on your skin and in your stomach and gastrointestinal, urinary and reproductive tracts. These microbes actually LIKE an alkaline environment and thrive in it!
- the stomach being highly acidic will digest foods into their smaller components, which are no longer acidic or alkaline... Hence the foods you eat do NOTHING to either acidify or alkalise your body
- your body has 5 pH buffering (ie, balancing) systems to keep various organs of fluids within the small pH range necessary for optimal function. Consuming too much acidic foods or drinks will simply be balanced out with production of more alkaline compounds and increased excretion of the acids! Or the opposite - if consuming just alkaline foods, this will be countered by the body making more acid compounds to bring the organ or tissues into correct balance again!
- there is the public perception that cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment, and therefore why we need to eat and drink more alkaline products and avoid acidic foods. The real fact is that cancer cells have a disordered metabolism and only produce energy via a process called glycolysis, from which a major by-product is lactate, also called lactic ACID! Hence it is the cancer cells producing the acidic environment, NOT the acidic environment causing the cancer...
Then there's my (least) favourite social media health advice of recommending drinking alkalised water with bicarbonate (baking soda) to prevent disease and cancer! This comes from old research from an Italian cancer Doctor Tullio Simoncini who produced research that he killed cancer cells with alkaline baking soda. HOWEVER, he INJECTED baking soda into tumours, and found this killed cancer cells. BUT it isn't actually the alkalinity which kills the cancer cells, but by the "osmotic shift" in fluid from within the cancer cells into the higher alkaline fluid injected into the tumour. The cancer cells became damaged, then dehydrated and died as a result.
Unfortunately people have just taken the "baking soda kills cancer cells" headline and run off with the idea that baking soda and alkalinity can be taken in any form as a cheap and simple cancer prevention or treatment! Nothing could be further from the truth.
Drinking baking soda water will hit your stomach and neutralise some of the stomach acid! This will reduce the effectiveness of the acidic stomach to kill bacteria and viruses and other pathogens (leading to more infections), AND reduce the amount of digestion of foods that the stomach can break down, which in turn means a reduced absorption of digested nutrients which your body really needs, and in turn your entire body and health will suffer. Your stomach needs to be highly acidic in order to properly break down carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins B9 (folate), B12, iron, and to release many minerals which you can then absorb and use. If you don't have enough acidity in your stomach, you won't absorb these nutrients and your health will suffer.
Alkaline foods can be very healthy, but so can acidic foods (tomatoes, citrus, pineapple, and many others). Just because some foods are acidic doesn't mean they are bad, and similarly, just because some foods are alkaline doesn't mean they are healthy! To be healthy, you need to eat a variety of foods, and not restrict your intake based on an incorrect assumption or misinterpretation of a story based on a food's pH level!
Anyway, back to Dr Young... He was recently ordered to pay US$105 MILLION (AUD$146 Million) in damages to just one of his clients, for misrepresenting himself as a medical doctor (which he isn't!), having fraudulent PhD qualifications from a unaccredited institution, recommending a client to stop their medical treatment for cancer to instead do his alkaline treatments which didn't work and the person's cancer progressed to Stage 4 (Financial Review, 2018). As well as the massive fine, he was disqualified from practicing, forced to admit publicly that he isn't a medical doctor or a scientist, and sentenced to several months in jail.
The alkaline diet is a hoax, non-scientific, and completely ridiculous. At best it is useless, but could be quite dangerous for your health.
Stay balanced, and healthy!
References:
Financial Review. (2018). pH Miracle author Robert Young ordered to pay cancer patient $US105 million. Retrieved 6th February 2022 from https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/ph-miracle-author-robert-young-ordered-to-pay-cancer-patient-us105-million-20181105-h17i9u
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