Body too alkaline

[juliebove]

This is what I was just told by the naturopath at the health food store. I used to think (when I was still eating eggs and dairy) that my body was too acid, so I'd often drink water with lemon and lime juice in it. This made me feel better. But now I seem to have the opposite problem. I looked up the acid foods and most of these are the things that I don't eat. Exception being Brazil nuts and walnuts. I do eat both of these, but I don't eat the Brazil nuts as often because they seem to be harder to come by here.

I did start taking some herbs recently and am going back up there to show her what I am taking. She also thinks I have some gall bladder and liver issues going on, plus a few other things. And she doesn't think I'm eating enough protein.

Has anyone else had a body that was too alkaline? If so, what did you do about it? I really don't want to take more supplements.

[Sheryl]

I think statements like that are often generalizations and have no real meaning. On what did she base this?

The body is very good at maintaining it's ph... our urine and saliva might show one way or another, but the blood MUST maintain a set ph to keep us alive. And food is only part of the equation.

Exercising can create lactic acid! If you feel you're too alkaline go for a jog!

Cheers,
Sheryl

[misslinda]

:confused:

A naturopath at a health food store? No testing I assume?


I mean, you would have to have been on a very cleansing diet for a period of time to become "too alkaline."

Why do you think you may be "too alkaline?"


:)

[Pailani]

I'm curious about this, too. I bought some Ph strips this week and I've tested normal twice and a little too alkaline once. The strip instructions say that it's rare but unhealthy to be too alkaline. I can hardly believe that too many greens in my smoothie would be a health risk - and I'm unsure what the risk is of being too alkaline.

[greeninlosangeles]

Well, when do you measure Ph? The best time to find out your base one is to measure saliva in the morning before you eat or drink and I really doubt that yours will be too alkaline. My is still 5.5 to 6.0. Now the funny thing is, that when my saliva is 5.5(usually when I did not have green smoohtie the day before), my urine is very alkaline(over 7.5), but when saliva is 6.0, urine is also 6.0 or 5.5. My guess is that when your saliva is too acidic, your urine is alkaline, because your blood is also too acidic and fixes itself by draining calcium from the bones and later ends up in urine. If that is truth, urine alkalinity is not a good thing at all. In my experience just strong greens like kale and dandellion helps. And I am raw for over 7 months.
Why don't you get the strips and measure saliva in the morning. Let us know, if in that case you are still too alkaline. I really would be surprised.

[juliebove]

I think statements like that are often generalizations and have no real meaning. On what did she base this?

The body is very good at maintaining it's ph... our urine and saliva might show one way or another, but the blood MUST maintain a set ph to keep us alive. And food is only part of the equation.

Exercising can create lactic acid! If you feel you're too alkaline go for a jog!

Cheers,
Sheryl

I can't jog. I'm disabled and can barely walk. I do workout with weights though.

She based this on my blood work. Punched the numbers into her computer and came up with this. She did give me some ph test papers to check the urine and saliva in the morning.

[juliebove]

:confused:

A naturopath at a health food store? No testing I assume?


I mean, you would have to have been on a very cleansing diet for a period of time to become "too alkaline."

Why do you think you may be "too alkaline?"


:)

She recently became a Naturopath and she's the owner of the store. She based this on the labs I got from my mom's naturopath. He is the one who diagnosed my food allergies. And also on the latest labs from my Endo. indicating protein in my urine. She has some kind of computer program where she punched in the numbers from my labs and told me this.

I have been taking in a lot of lemon and lime juice lately. I used to do that back when I ate dairy and eggs. I'd start feeling sort of heavy and unwell and I'd drink tons of water with the juice in it and feel better. I haven't felt the need to do that recently but I have been adding the juice to my food. Perhaps I shouldn't have.

[juliebove]

Well, when do you measure Ph? The best time to find out your base one is to measure saliva in the morning before you eat or drink and I really doubt that yours will be too alkaline. My is still 5.5 to 6.0. Now the funny thing is, that when my saliva is 5.5(usually when I did not have green smoohtie the day before), my urine is very alkaline(over 7.5), but when saliva is 6.0, urine is also 6.0 or 5.5. My guess is that when your saliva is too acidic, your urine is alkaline, because your blood is also too acidic and fixes itself by draining calcium from the bones and later ends up in urine. If that is truth, urine alkalinity is not a good thing at all. In my experience just strong greens like kale and dandellion helps. And I am raw for over 7 months.
Why don't you get the strips and measure saliva in the morning. Let us know, if in that case you are still too alkaline. I really would be surprised.

She gave me the strips. I've been taking dandelion root. And I normally eat a lot of greens. Don't do smoothies though. I have eaten a lot of beets lately too. But again, she based this on two different lab reports. One was from Dec. and the other about two weeks ago.

[juliebove]

Okay... I did the ph test strips the morning. Urine was 6.0 and saliva was 6.5. If anything, I'm a little on the acid side.

[misslinda]

I was just gonna add, more than unlikely that you are "too alkaline" Cousens discusses this in his book and it's those folks who stay on a "cleansing diet" for a long period of time vs a maintenace diet that become too alkaline. By all means, not attempting to take place of a professional.

What did you mean you'd add the juice to your food?

I find that lemon is so cleansing that I have to do the opposite and add "sweet" foods to balance the effect. I also have observed that when I add good bacteria after something like lemon juice, my stomach feels better.

[juliebove]

I was just gonna add, more than unlikely that you are "too alkaline" Cousens discusses this in his book and it's those folks who stay on a "cleansing diet" for a long period of time vs a maintenace diet that become too alkaline. By all means, not attempting to take place of a professional.

What did you mean you'd add the juice to your food?

I find that lemon is so cleansing that I have to do the opposite and add "sweet" foods to balance the effect. I also have observed that when I add good bacteria after something like lemon juice, my stomach feels better.

I don't usually add dressing to my salads because I don't like it. But I did make a corn salad with a lot of lime juice in it, and a beet salad with some lemon juice in it. Turns out she said my ph was just fine.

Now that I think about it, I recall my biology teacher telling me of a story that took place some years ago. He took his family on a car trip somewhere and his wife got an upset stomach so she kept popping antacid pills. Instead of feeling better, she felt worse the more she ate. Then as they were driving by a farm stand, she begged him to stop. He said she fled the vehicle, bought a huge tomato and began devouring it right there on the spot. In telling the story he sort of re-enacted what she did and it appeared that she was just drawn to the tomato. Turns out she had used up all the acid in her body with the antacids and suddenly all she could think of was eating a tomato. AFter that she felt immediately better.

[greeninlosangeles]

Acids in ripe tomatoe does not raise ph in your body. Unripe fruits are slightly acidic to the body as most nuts. Vegetables and greens are alkalizing. That's what I read.
Can the blood be too alkaline as your saliva is too acidic? Could you repeat the bood test and ask them for exact number.I think it must be 7.235, but I am not 100 percent sure.

[Brianna]

Try drinking a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar in a glass of water sweetened with some honey or stevia or agave (whatever you like) twice a day. It's delicious. It tastes like apple cider and will help you to become less alkaline.

[jaurequi]

Reading through this thread, I'm unable to glean just which numbers are acidic and which are alkaline.

Will someone indicate, one, what the numbers represent and what is ideal; two, what is moderate/acceptable; and, three, what is acidic.

Someone mentioned the morning as the best time to test saliva; what time is best to test urine?
Does anyone know which is a better indicator?
Can the strips be used for either test, or must one have special strips for saliva and others for urine?

Thank you.

Best,

[luckitri]

I never heard of this before but a local holistic health professional told me that two items bring down acidity and they are the Braggs vinegar and fresh lemon juice. I questioned him because I thought that I could not have heard him right and I really don't remember his explanation but he insisted that these two acidic items will have the reverse effect and lower your body acidity.

[alex]

Probably the best authority on acid/alkaline balance is Dr Robert O. Young. Read: The pH Miracle, where all is explained.

It appears that it is virtually impossible to be too alkaline as our metabolism generates acid.

The pH of the blood is probably more important than our body temperature, or any other number when it comes to assessing our health status. According to Dr Young the ideal pH is 7.365. If your blood pH were to drop to 7.2 - you would be dead.

Urine and saliva pH are not perfect. The strips are not that easy to read, even thinking about food affects your saliva pH, time of day, what you ate the night before etc. To be meaningful, the readings must be taken near the same time every day for many days.

I would strongly recommend reading this book however.


alex

[firefaery]

Too much acid will shock your body into alkalinity,hence the braggs and lemon.

[greeninlosangeles]

Well, that's the point, your blood always keeps it perfect, unless it is out of any reserves of calcium in the bones, but by that time you would feel very sick. So your blood test will be perfect most of the time even if you are very acidic.
I trust saliva test more than others.
Can you ask your naturopathic doctor to explain you all the tests he or she did with numbers and explanations?

[lissomllama]

The body is supposed to be very alkaline. Alkaline=good. Just keep eating the few things you normally eat that do create acidic conditions and you'll be fine. Your body will keep you balanced.

[Sunshine9]

You can be too alkaline.. but unless you are living on greens juice I highly doubt that you are there.

Test your pH...

[Lay-Lay]

yeah, I too thought Alkaline was a good thing. Did they own the health food store? May have been trying to get you to buy more supplements, but I wasn't there so I can't say.

[luckitri]

I just read that alkaline is good because cancer cannot survive in an alkaline body.

[alex]

For your interest:


There is No Disease!

Disease names like diabetes and osteoporosis are misleading and misinform patients about disease prevention.

There is a curious tendency in conventional medicine to name a set of symptoms a disease. I was recently at a compounding pharmacy having my bone mineral density measured to update
my health stats. I spotted a poster touting a new drug for osteoporosis. It was written by a drug company and it said exactly this: 'Osteoporosis is a disease that causes weak and fragile bones.' Then, the poster went on to say that you need a particular drug to counteract this 'disease.'

Yet the language is all backwards. Osteoporosis isn't a disease that causes weak bones, osteoporosis is the name given to a diagnosis of weak bones. In other words, the weak bones are the result of excess acidity, and then the diagnosis of osteoporosis followed.

The drug poster makes it sound like osteoporosis strikes first, and then you get weak bones. The cause and effect is all backwards. And that's how drug companies want people to think about diseases and symptoms: first you 'get' the disease, and then you are 'diagnosed'
just in time to take a new drug for the rest of your life.

But it's all hogwash. There is no such disease as osteoporosis. It's just a made-up name given to a pattern of symptoms that indicate you are over-acid which causes your bones to get fragile.

As another example, when a person follows an unhealthy lifestyle that results in a symptom such as high blood pressure, that symptom is actually being assumed to be a disease all by itself and it will be given a disease name. What disease? The disease is, of course, 'high blood pressure.' Doctors throw this phrase around as if it were an actual disease and not merely descriptive of patient physiology.

This may all seem silly, right? But there's actually a very important point to all this.

When we look at symptoms and give them disease names, we automatically distort the selection of available treatments for such a disease. If the disease is, by itself, high cholesterol, then the cure for the disease must be nothing other than lowering the high cholesterol. And that's how we end up with all these pharmaceuticals treating high cholesterol in order to 'prevent' this
disease and lower the levels of LDL cholesterol in the human patient. By lowering only the cholesterol, the doctor can rest assured that he is, in fact, treating this 'disease,' since the definition of this 'disease' is high cholesterol and nothing else.

But there is a fatal flaw in this approach to disease treatment: the symptom is not the cause of the disease. There is another cause, and this deeper cause is routinely ignored by conventional medicine, doctors, drug companies, and even patients.

Let's take a closer look at high blood pressure. What actually causes high blood pressure? Many doctors would say high blood pressure is caused by a specific, measurable interaction between circulating chemicals in the human body. Thus, the ill-behaved chemical compounds are the cause of the high blood pressure, and therefore the solution is to regulate these chemicals. That's exactly what pharmaceuticals do -- they attempt to manipulate the chemicals in the body to adjust the symptoms of high blood pressure. Thus, they only treat the symptoms, not the root cause.

Or take a look at high cholesterol. The conventional medicine approach says that high cholesterol is caused by a chemical imbalance in the liver, which is the organ that produces cholesterol. Thus the treatment for high cholesterol is a prescription drug that inhibits the liver's production of cholesterol (statin drugs). Upon taking these drugs, the high cholesterol (the 'disease') is regulated, but what was causing the liver to overproduce cholesterol in the
first place? That causative factor remains ignored.

The root cause of high cholesterol, as it turns out, is primarily an over acidic diet. A person who eats foods that are acid ash producing, will inevitably cause the body to go into preservation mode and produce more cholesterol to neutralize the excess acid thus showing the symptoms of this so-called disease of high cholesterol. It's simple cause and effect. Eat the wrong foods, and you'll produce too much acid which will cause the body to release cholesterol from the liver to bind up that acid which can be detected and diagnosed by conventional medical procedures.

You see it is not the cholesterol that is bad, it is the acid producing food we eat that is bad. Reduce the acid producing foods like beef, chicken, pork, dairy, coffee, tea, soda pops, etc and you will reduce the protective cholesterol that is saving your life from excess acid
foods.

Yet the root cause of all this is actually poor food choice, not some bizarre behavior by the liver. If the disease were to be accurately named, then, it would be called Acidic Food Choice Disease, or simply AFCD.

AFCD would be a far more accurate name that would make sense to people. If it's an acidic foods choice disease, then it seems that the obvious solution to the disease would be to choose foods that aren't so acid forming. Of course that may be a bit of simplification since you have to distinguish between healthy alkaline foods and unhealthy acidic foods. But at least the name AFCD gives patients a better idea of what's actually going on rather than naming the disease after a symptom, such as high cholesterol. You see, the symptom is not the disease, but conventional medicine insists on calling the symptom the disease because that way it can treat the symptom and claim success without actually addressing the underlying cause, which
remains a mystery to modern medicine.

But let's move on to some other diseases so you get a clearer picture of how this actually works. Another disease that's caused by poor acidic food choice is diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is the natural physiological and metabolic result of a person consuming refined carbohydrates and added sugars in large quantities, undigested proteins from beef, chicken, and pork without
engaging in regular physical exercise that would compensate for such dietary practices.

The name 'diabetes' is meaningless to the average person. The disease should be called Excessive Acid Disease, or EAD. If it were called Excessive Acid Disease, the solution to it would be rather apparent; simply eat less sugar, eliminating all animal proteins, eggs, dairy, drinking fewer soft drinks and so on. But of course that would be far too simple for the medical community, so the disease must be given a complex name such as diabetes that puts its solution out of reach of the average patient.

Another disease that is named after its symptom is cancer. In fact, to this day, most doctors and many patients still believe that cancer is a physical thing: a tumor. In reality, a tumor is the solution of cancer, not its cause. A tumor is simply a physical manifestation of bound up acidic cells so they do not spoil other healthy cells. The tumor is the solution to cells damaged by acids, not the problem. The truth is cancer is not a cell but an acidic liquid. When a person 'has cancer,' what they really have is a latent tissue acidosis. They are absorbing their own acidic urine. That would be a far better name for the disease: Latent Tissue Acidosis or LTA.

If cancer were actually called Latent Tissue Acidosis, it would seem ridiculous to try to cure cancer by cutting out tumors through surgery or by destroying the immune system with chemotherapy. And yet these are precisely the most popular treatments for cancer offered
by conventional medicine. These treatments do absolutely nothing to support the patient's immune system and prevent the build up of acids in the tissues. That's exactly why most people who undergo chemotherapy or the removal of tumors through surgical procedures end up with yet more cancer a few months or a few years later. It's also another reason why survival rates of cancer have barely budged over the last fifty years. (In other words, conventional medicine's treatments for cancer simply don't work.)

The main reason is that current medical science wrongly perceives cancer as a cell, when in reality cancer is an acidic liquid, like lactic acid. This whole situation stems from the fact that the disease is misnamed. It isn't cancer, it isn't a tumor and it certainly isn't a disease caused by having too strong of an immune system that needs to be destroyed through chemotherapy. It is simply latent tissue acidosis. And if it were called 'latent tissue acidosis' disease or 'urine in the tissues', the effective treatment for cancer would be apparent.

There are many other diseases that are given misleading names by western medicine. But if you look around the world and take a look at how diseases are named elsewhere, you will find many countries have disease names that actually make sense.

For example, in Chinese medicine, Alzheimer's disease is given a name that means, when translated, 'feeble mind disease.' In Chinese medicine, the name of the disease more accurately
describes the actual cause of the disease which is caused by acids or urine on the brain, whereas in western medicine, the name of the disease seems to be intended to obscure the root
cause of the disease, thereby making all diseases sound far more complex and mysterious than they really are.

This is one way in which doctors and practitioners of western medicine keep medical treatments out of the reach of the average citizen. Because, by God, they sure don't want people thinking for themselves about the causes of disease!

By creating a whole new vocabulary for medical conditions, they can speak their own secret language and make sure that people who aren't schooled in medicine don't understand what they're saying.

That's a shame, because the treatments and cures for virtually all chronic diseases are actually quite simple and can be described in plain language, such as making different alkaline food choices, getting more natural sunlight, drinking more alkaline water, engaging in regular physical exercise, avoiding specific acid forming foods, supplementing your diet with green foods and green drinks and alkalizing nutritional supplements and so on.

See, western medicine prefers to describe diseases in terms of chemistry. When you're depressed, you aren't suffering from a lack of natural sunlight; you are suffering from a 'brain chemistry imbalance' that can only be regulated, they claim, by ingesting toxic chemicals to alter your brain chemistry. When your bones are brittle, it's not acidic brittle bones disease; it's called osteoporosis, something that sounds very technical and complicated. And to treat it, western doctors and physicians will give you prescriptions for expensive drugs that somehow claim to make your bones less brittle. But in fact, the real treatment for this can be described in plain
language once again: regular physical exercise, vitamin D supplementation, mineral supplements that include calcium and strontium, natural sunlight, and avoidance of acidic foods such as
soft drinks, white flour and added sugars.

In fact, virtually every disease that's prominent in modern society - diabetes, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, clinical depression, irritable bowel syndrome and so on -- can be easily described in plain language without using complex terms at all. These diseases are simply misnamed. And I believe that they are intentionally misnamed to put the jargon out of reach of everyday citizens. As a result, there's a great deal of arrogance in the language of western medicine, and this arrogance furthers the language of separation. Separation never results in healing. In order to effect healing, we must bring together the language of healers and
patients using plain language that real people understand and that real people can act upon.

We need to start describing diseases in terms of their root causes, not in terms of their arcane, biochemical actions. When someone suffers from seasonal affective disorder or clinical depression, for example, let's call it what it is: Sunlight Deficiency Disorder. To treat it, the person simply needs to get more sunlight. This isn't rocket science, it's not complex, and it doesn't require a prescription.

If someone is suffering from osteoporosis, let's get realistic about the words we use to describe the condition: it's really Acidic Bones Disease. And it should be treated with things that will enhance bone density, such as nutrition, physical exercise and avoidance of acid forming foods and drinks that strip away bone mass from the human body to neutralize the excess acids in the blood and tissues.

All of this information, of course, is rather shocking to old-school doctors and practitioners of western medicine, and the bigger their egos are, the more they hate the idea of naming diseases in plain language that patients can actually comprehend. That's because if the simple truths about diseases and their causes were known, health would be more readily available to everyday people, and that would lessen the importance of physicians and medical researchers.

There's a great deal of ego invested in the medical community, and they sure don't want to make sound health attainable to the average person without their expert advice. Doctors all want to serve as the translators of 'truth' and will balk at any attempts to educate the public to practice medicine on their own. But in reality, health is attainable by every single person. Health is easy, it is straightforward, it is direct and, for the most part, it is available free of charge.

Don't believe the names of diseases given to you by your doctor. Those names are designed to obscure, not to inform. They are designed to separate you from self-healing, not to put you in
touch with your own inner healer. And thus, they are nothing more than bad medicine masquerading as modern medical practice.

The Human body is alkaline by design and acidic by function. The key to incredible outstanding health and fitness, free from ALL sickness and disease, is to maintain the body's alkaline design.

In Love and Light

Dr Robert & Shelley Young




alex

[Healthnut]

For optimum health and maximum resistance to disease, it is imperative that your diet is slightly over-alkaline. The ideal ratio, according to the world's foremost authority on the relationship between the acid-alkaline ratio in the diet in health and disease, Dr. Ragnar Berg, is about 80% alkali-producing foods and 20% acid-producing foods.

Here are tables of common foods with an approximate potential acidity or alkalinity, as present in one ounce of food.

ALKALI-FORMING FOODS

Figs 30.0 Potatoes 2.0
Soybeans 12.0 Pineapple 2.0
Lima beans 12.0 Cabbage 1.8
Apricots 9.5 Grapefruit 1.7
Spinach 8.0 Tomatoes 1.7
Turnip or Beet tops 8.0 Peaches 1.5
Raisins 7.0 Apples 1.0
Almonds 3.6 Grapes 1.0
Carrots 3.5 Bananas 1.0
Dates 3.0 Watermelon 1.0
Celery 2.5 Millet 0.5
Cucumber 2.5 Brazil nuts 0.5
Cantaloupe 2.5 Coconuts 0.5
Lettuce 2.2 Buckwheat 0.5
Watercress 2.0


NEUTRAL (OR NEAR-NEUTRAL) ASH FOODS

Milk Vegetable oils
Butter White sugar


ACID-FORMING FOODS

Oysters 5.0 Rice 2.5
Veal 3.5 Whole wheat or rye bread 2.5
Most fish 3.5 Natural Cheese 1.5
Organ meats 3.0 Liver 3.0
Lentils 1.5 Chicken 3.0
Peanuts 1.0 Most meats and fowl 3.0
Eggs 3.0 Most grains 3.0
Most nuts, except almonds & Brazil nuts 2.0


Most grains are acid forming, except millet and buckwheat, which are considered to be alkaline. Sprouted seeds and grains become more alkaline in the process of sprouting.

All vegetable and fruit juices are highly alkaline. The most alkali-forming juices are: Fig juice, green juices of all green vegetables and tops, carrot, beet, celery, pineapple and citrus juices. Vegetable broth is an extremely alkalizing drink.