Body pH, training, and health

I am curious if anyone here pays attention to and is aware of the importance of the pH of their incoming nutrient stream. Specifically, the importance of eating plenty of alkaline foods, or foods which will digest into an alkaline state.  Anyone notice any different training outcomes from balancing the pH of their diet?  Any difference in health?  

ho·me·o·sta·sis/ˌhōmēəˈstāsəs/noun

1. the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes.

I assume you are referring to the fact that the bloods pH tends to stay very close to 7.365?  Any clue how this 'homeostasis' is achieved?  

Hint: the likelihood of osteoperosis, diabetes, cancer, and many other diseases (especially 'diseases' linked to a lower than optimal metabolism) increase if you don't manage to get enough alkalinity into your incoming nutrient stream.

FosterK: what is the typical pH of our diets as Americans?

Mmmm, bro science

Gerrit Verbeek wrote: Mmmm, bro science

Yes, the stupid idea that if you are eating an acidic diet (meaning a pH below 7.0), don't produce alkalinity in your body, but require a stable blood pH of 7.365, that you might develop health problems...just 'bro science'.  I hope, for your healths sake, that is not your actual opinion.

JNE wrote:

Yes, the stupid idea that if you are eating an acidic diet (meaning a pH below 7.0), don't produce alkalinity in your body, but require a stable blood pH of 7.365, that you might develop health problems...just 'bro science'.  I hope, for your healths sake, that is not your actual opinion.

Have any sources for this?

We don't produce salt in our body either and blood salinity is 0.9%, so by your logic our diet should be exactly 0.9% saline. Hyperventilating can raise your blood pH to 7.7 and acclimation to every 1000m above sea level changes your blood pH by about 0.05 units ( ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl… ). I hope you optimize your diet for the elevation you live at! I live at sea level, so I should probably be eating 53 more grams of organic kale per day than you.

7.365 is over-precise to the level of silliness, scientific consensus is that the acceptable range for sustaining life is 7.4 +/- 0.5.

Why, oh why didn't evolution find any ways for cells to buffer nutrients or move substances against a concentration gradient? How did us fragile human snowflakes ever traverse the globe without pH strips?

Chris Reyes wrote:

Have any sources for this?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/

Although they don't conclude increasing the alkalinity of the diet reduces the risk of osteoporosis, they also conclude this is only because the digestive system absorbs any lost mineral, which completely ignores whether this is coming from the diet or other sources, so I would say this part of the analysis is in need of better and more research.

Gerrit Verbeek wrote: Why, oh why didn't evolution find any ways for cells to buffer nutrients or move substances against a concentration gradient? How did us fragile human snowflakes ever traverse the globe without pH strips?

 If you read the above paper, you will find that the pH of the human diet has changed substantially since we have adopted agriculture.

JNE wrote: I assume you are referring to the fact that the bloods pH tends to stay very close to 7.365?  Any clue how this 'homeostasis' is achieved?  

Yes:

JNE wrote: the pH of the human diet has changed substantially since we have adopted agriculture.

And if humans all have a pretty similar blood pH...

...from hunter-gatherers to raw food vegans to Inuit societies who eat primarily fish...

...everywhere from sea level to the Tibetan plateau...

...from Olympic athletes to couch potatoes...

that should tell you that the pH of your diet doesn't really matter all that much.

Be proud and thankful, humans are not that fragile. I need to get back to work...

FosterK wrote:

Yes:

Any guesses as to why you feel less lactic acid burn the day after you train if you did a bunch of hard breathing (but not hard muscular work to create that breathing) compared to if you did not?

Beans.

JNE wrote:

Any guesses as to why you feel less lactic acid burn the day after you train if you did a bunch of hard breathing (but not hard muscular work to create that breathing) compared to if you did not?

Probably due to the fact that you spent too much time breathing hard instead of working out hard.

But, if you desire to experiment, go for it. Start neutralizing your stomach acid just to make sure that your ph-neutral diet doesn't mess with anything

​https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/the-alkaline-diet-myth​

amarius wrote:

Start neutralizing your stomach acid just to make sure that your ph-neutral diet doesn't mess with anything

This should probably be the end of the thread... 

Seems to me that whatever typical blend of food and drink gets consumed, pretty much every person's digestive system is routinely explosed to a very _acidic_ flow, namely ...
stomach acid

Yet somehow pretty much every person maintains an appropriate blood pH with no problem. Sounds like for pretty much every person, acidity entering the digestive system has already been solved by some successful process selected through millions of years of animal and human evolution thru brutal repeated random exposure to a wide variety fo food environments.

Now . . . the impact of higher acidity of food + drink on the teeth and mouth and throat is a different question.
. . . (Also the problem some people have with their Stomach acid finding its way up into their throat).

Ken

P.S. Actually my own blood pH does get altered (in the alkaline direction) when I go up to altitude (which gives me symptoms of AMS), but then in a few days my body adjusts it.
Another source of acidity in the animial / human environment is carbon dioxide CO2 in the atmosphere, which normally dissolves into our blood as carbonic acid.

JNE wrote: 

Any guesses as to why you feel less lactic acid burn the day after you train if you did a bunch of hard breathing (but not hard muscular work to create that breathing) compared to if you did not?

Here are some guesses:

1. This doesn't actually happen at all (we're not required to explain phenomena you haven't proved actually happen).
2. Because of the placebo effect.
3. Because you didn't do any hard muscular work.
4. Because people who subscribe to pseudoscience like hyperventilating to control blood pH also often smoke marijuana, which is a painkiller.
5. Because lactic acid doesn't cause burning and you're fundamentally misinformed about what is happening when you feel the burn after exercise.
6. Because breathing brings oxygen into the body, allowing your body to create more energy via aerobic rather than anaerobic pathways.
7. Because breathing causes your muscles to relax.
8. Because you're distracted by dizziness caused by the hyperventilation.
9. Because hyperventilating dries your mouth, causing you to drink water, which replenishes the muscles.
10. Because of oxidation levels, which you probably learned about in the same high school class where you learned about pH--if we're attempting to explain complex biology via very simple chemical processes, why choose pH over oxidation?

Given lactic acid doesn't cause burning, most of these hypotheses make a great deal more sense than your pH hypothesis.

Jaren Watson wrote: I eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, some grains, and occasionally meat.

I don’t know what is the ph of all that, but I feel pretty damn good most of the time, have plenty of energy to do whatever activities I want, and, nothing humble about this brag, have the body of a Greek god.

(If anyone points out that Hephaestus is technically a Greek god, but whose ill-formed body is nothing to write home about, I will fashion for them an anthrax-laden Bubo and mail it to their residence.)

I don't know, if this sculpture at the Louvre is accurate, his body looks fairly well-formed to me. (Other than the fact that he's missing a bunch of fingers. Of course, if Tommy Caldwell is anything to go by, this probably means he absolutely crushes at the crag.)

David K wrote:

Here are some guesses:

1. This doesn't actually happen at all (we're not required to explain phenomena you haven't proved actually happen).
2. Because of the placebo effect.
3. Because you didn't do any hard muscular work.
4. Because people who subscribe to pseudoscience like hyperventilating to control blood pH also often smoke marijuana, which is a painkiller.
5. Because lactic acid doesn't cause burning and you're fundamentally misinformed about what is happening when you feel the burn after exercise.
6. Because breathing brings oxygen into the body, allowing your body to create more energy via aerobic rather than anaerobic pathways.
7. Because breathing causes your muscles to relax.
8. Because you're distracted by dizziness caused by the hyperventilation.
9. Because hyperventilating dries your mouth, causing you to drink water, which replenishes the muscles.
10. Because of oxidation levels, which you probably learned about in the same high school class where you learned about pH--if we're attempting to explain complex biology via very simple chemical processes, why choose pH over oxidation?

Given lactic acid doesn't cause burning, most of these hypotheses make a great deal more sense than your pH hypothesis.

Nice guesses.

Ironically, from the second link in point number 5, ironically the word 'acid':  

One thing that can significantly effect the acidity inside your muscle tissue (or in any solution) is hydrogen. The more hydrogen the lower the pH (more acidic). During exercise, hydrogen is released in abundance as a result of breaking down fuels. Experiments have shown that the largest decreases in pH (muscles becoming more acidic) are during short bouts of intense, maximal effort that last anywhere from 1-10 minutes. 

JNE wrote:

Nice guesses.

Ironically, from the second link in point number 5, ironically the word 'acid':  

One thing that can significantly effect the acidity inside your muscle tissue (or in any solution) is hydrogen. The more hydrogen the lower the pH (more acidic). During exercise, hydrogen is released in abundance as a result of breaking down fuels. Experiments have shown that the largest decreases in pH (muscles becoming more acidic) are during short bouts of intense, maximal effort that last anywhere from 1-10 minutes.

So? That doesn't prove anything at all about what you should eat. In fact, it's implied by that paragraph that the pH returns to normal after the short bout of maximal effort.

JNE wrote:

Any guesses as to why you feel less lactic acid burn the day after you train if you did a bunch of hard breathing (but not hard muscular work to create that breathing) compared to if you did not?

Uh..... because lactate is cleared from your blood stream within hours by your heart and skeletal muscles? Lactic acid exists even more briefly in the blood stream - it is highly transient, dissociating into lactate almost immediately. 

Hard breathing is the body's response via the pulmonary system to rid itself of extra H+ ions. Which are typically formed from anaerobic exercise... which is usually considered "hard effort".