anyone heard of aligning alkaline levels

anm

I really don't know if this is the place to post this and I apologize if not, but my aunt has been diagnosed with a recurrence of IDC, she is now stage 4 with mets throughout spine, liver, lungs, original sight in breast plus pleural effusion(sp?).  It was found last month, she immediately went to MD Anderson where she was told her situation was very grim due to many factors but her cancer is traveling through her blood not her lymphatic system.  She was put on a clinical trial in the form of a pill and came home.  It has been about 2 1/2 weeks now family members have convinced her there is a doctor(he's an  ND) that has the cure.  They have changed her diet 100% and have her on some sort of herbal supplement.  She has quit taking her clinical trial chemo and due to the clauses with hospice is no longer able to receive pain meds as she is in extreme pain.  Hospice gave her about a month to live 2 weeks ago.  I stood by and held my mom's hand as she passed away from this horrible disesase and saw how painful it was for her.  I am sickened by the decisions that I feel have been made for her not by her and just don't want to see someone else go through that kind of pain.  The claim of this program is to get the alkaline level up to 7.2 which this doctor says kills cancer.  I am a volunteer for the American Cancer Society and feel this is all total rubbish, but am hoping someone might have heard of such and either have some info or know where to look for some hope

sheila888

bump

DGHoff

Hi anm,

I am so sorry to read that you have another loved one dealing with the pain of cancer. I hope that, whatever methods she ends up using will provide her some relief from the pain. 

I have become very familiar with the whole alkline/acid theories about our blood, and this is a very commonly discussed approach in natural cancer treatments.  Ideally, the pH of the blood should be maintained at 7.4. If the pH drops below 6.8 or rises above 7.8, this can be very serious.  Most of the foods that we eat on a standard western diet are considered acid-forming (grains, meats, refined sugars, cheese, sodas). Fresh vegetables and fruits, however, are considered alkaline forming. 

Our bodies are always seeking to maintain the ph of our blood, and there are multiple mechanisms for doing so, but one way is through drawing in minerals like magnesium, calcium, etc into the bloodstream. Fruits and vegetables are rich in these minerals. The approach of changing the diet seeks to remove the acid load on the body, provide additional minerals, and allow it an opportunity to heal itself. Cancer cells presumably go dormant at 7.4 ph and start to die off at higher phs as they cannot survive in an alkaline environment.

I recall one site where there was an unoffical poll done. Most of the respondents who had cancer had saliva ph levels of under 6.0.  The thing that most people don't realize about ph levels is that they aren't just incremental. They are exponential. so a difference of say, 7.0 to 6.0 is a huge order of magnitude difference.

I test out my saliva and urine with simple ph test strips on a fairly regular basis, and it is pretty interesting to see how what I eat affects it. It's not as scientific as testing one's blood, but it gives you a snapshot of how things are trending in your body. This week, for example, I've been doing a cleanse eating only raw fresh fruits and vegetables. My ph is always well above 7.  However, when I've been less conscious about my food choices and drink wine or have pizza, it moves a bit below that.

You can probably find a lot of information on the web if you just type in ph and cancer. Here is one pretty comprehensive site that you could check out.

http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/salivaphtest.htm

All the best to you and your aunt.

DeAnn

rreynolds1

I test my levels often and agree that they change depending on what I eat.  I also bought drops which bring it up when I become acidic.I believe it is a valid concept but with any treatment, it is more effective when started early.  I was diagnosed at Stage 1 node negative and hope that the changes with diet, exercise, etc. will keep my in good health.  Who knows?

Roseann

deni63

I test my pH as well as a means of keeping track of my alkalinity for prevention of future recurrences. I believe that it is important to balance your system to keep cancer from recurring. You should watch the documentary Crazy Sexy Cancer.  In it, Kris Karr learns that balancing pH is vital in keeping cancer under control. She was diagnosed with a rare cancer and with over 20 tumors in her liver and lungs. She has kept her condition stable for years by changing her lifestyle and balancing her pH. Very inspiring documentary.

KKing

This is very interesting...my Naturpath talked about this with me.  Where would you buy the strips??

Anm...so sorry about what is happening.  I hope your Aunt gets something for the pain, I remember my Dad having colon cancer and he had such pain in his leg that it was horrendous.  We did get him a nurse in to adminster pain meds when needed.

Take care

Karen

deni63

You can get the pH strips at any health food store or Whole Foods.

anm

Thank you all so much.  She seems to be getting a little worse the last few days, but I now do believe this is her choice and what she feels is best so I have to support that.  I definitley think it sounds like a healthy way of living.  But maybe not something to start when you're late in stage 4 and on a clinical trial from one of the top cancer centers in the world and drop the clinical trial for it.  Whatever the outcome we just have to support her it's just so hard to see that kind of pain again like my mom had.  Lots of BAD memories.  Again thank you all and I'll be sure to check out the video and websites.

carol1949

Dear anm,  I also have heard of the theory of the alkaline body hellping with negating cancer cells in the body.  Given the late stage of your Aunt's diagnosis, perhaps anything would be too late.

I do have a friend who is an 11 year breast cancer survivor, however, who did it totally holistically and the alkaline theory is part of the protocol she used.

It is our body and sometimes, you just have to follow your heart/ inner being, whatever you want to call it.

For some of us it is about quality of life.  Traditional theories also wreak havoc with the body and many of us choose to use body, mind and spirit as our means to deal with  this "dis" ease of the body.

We are all guaranteed nothing more than this moment of this day.  I wish your Aunt the best and support her in her decision. 

LJ13-2

According to Quackwatch:

 http://www.quackwatch.org/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=alkaline

Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense

Have you seen advertisements for products such as coral calcium or alkaline water that are supposed to neutralize acid in your bloodstream? Taking calcium or drinking alkaline water does not affect blood acidity. Anyone who tells you that certain foods or supplements make your stomach or blood acidic does not understand nutrition.

You should not believe that it matters whether foods are acidic or alkaline, because no foods change the acidity of anything in your body except your urine. Your stomach is so acidic that no food can change its acidity. Citrus fruits, vinegar, and vitamins such as ascorbic acid or folic acid do not change the acidity of your stomach or your bloodstream. An entire bottle of calcium pills or antacids would not change the acidity of your stomach for more than a few minutes.

All foods that leave your stomach are acidic. Then they enter your intestines where secretions from your pancreas neutralize the stomach acids. So no matter what you eat, the food in stomach is acidic and the food in the intestines is alkaline.

Dietary modification cannot change the acidity of any part of your body except your urine. Your bloodstream and organs control acidity in a very narrow range. Anything that changed acidity in your body would make you very sick and could even kill you. Promoters of these products claim that cancer cells cannot live in an alkaline environment and that is true, but neither can any of the other cells in your body.

Certain foods can leave end-products called ash that can make your urine acid or alkaline, but urine is the only body fluid that can have its acidity changed by food or supplements. ALKALINE-ASH FOODS include fresh fruit and raw vegetables. ACID-ASH FOODS include ALL ANIMAL PRODUCTS, whole grains, beans and other seeds. These foods can change the acidity of your urine, but that's irrelevant since your urine is contained in your bladder and does not affect the pH of any other part of your body.

Taking calcium supplements or drinking alkaline water will not change the pH of your blood. If you hear someone say that your body is too acidic and you should use their product to make it more alkaline, you would be wise not to believe anything else the person tells you.

DGHoff

Thanks for the Quackwatch post. I do love Quackwatch and have read a lot of great stuff there. Sometimes it is really funny.

But in this case, it isn't really looking at the right thing. Yes, the stomach is always acid and has to be. (In fact, I've even seen research that shows that most people who suffer from acid reflux don't actually have enough acid in their stomach.) We aren't talking about the acidity of food in or when it leaves the stomach though. We are really talking about the acidity levels of fluids and tissues in the body, which is quite different. Our body will zealously keep our blood levels at the right ph or we would die. Certain foods contain more acidic minerals like phosphorus and sulfur. Other foods contain more alkaline minerals like magnesium and calcium.  It really is all about minerals. The body seeks balance. We need both kinds of minerals. However, we have inadvertently flooded our bodies with an excess of acid forming minerals by following a typical western diet, while not providing as many alkaline minerals.  If there is too much acid in the body, the body will try to eliminate it through typical methods, but if we aren't exercising and sweating it out, if we aren't having two to three bowel movements a day, and if we aren't drinking enough water to urinate frequently, we will have a hard time releasing it. The body will draw alkaline minerals from its own reserves to balance out the acid minerals, but if there are not sufficient amounts from the foods we eat and the water we drink, then it must draw from bones, etc. 

So, on the one hand you could say that it is true that calcium supplements and drinking alkaline water won't really change the ph of your blood as your body always tries to keep it at the same level. But it sure has an easier time of it when it has the alkaline mineral reserves to draw from.  

To all a good night!

Yazmin

DGHoff:

I have been on Quackwatch as well, because I like to listen to different opinions before deciding which way I think I should go. Unfortunately, the discussions I tried to join was about nothing else than alternative-bashing. When I tried to ask this question:

"Are you really sure that chemotherapy provides a 95% cure to breast cancer?" here is the answer I got:

"If you are going to post here, have the intestinal guts to state your questions clearly." (The other answers were barely less hostile, so I got the message that the discussion was not about exchanging ideas, but about stomping on complimentary and alternative medicine, like a bunch of kids having a tamper tantrum).

DGHoff

Saw this article in the New York Times the other day, and it does a nice job of explaining the whole acid-alkaline thing. In this case the article referred to bone loss, but its always nice to see something in mainstream media about this stuff. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/health/24brod.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=alkaline diet&st=cse

deni63

Great article! Yes it is nice to see the mainstream media reporting on something like this.

CrunchyPoodleMama

DGHoff, great post and great article... thanks for posting that. I, too, go to Quackwatch fairly frequently in my quest for getting down to the truth. I wish it were objective and fact-based, but it does help me get the worst possible scenario of the other side of any alternative I'm considering. Overall, Quackwatch has (ironically) persuaded me that certain alternative approaches are indeed legitimate (even though it obviously desperately tries to prove the opposite).

AnneW

I just came across this article from the NYTimes, by Jane Brody. I still use her cookbook. Anyway, I thought it was interesting about acidity and our bones.

Exploring a Low-Acid Diet for Bone Health By JANE E. BRODY

The science of osteoporosis and its resultant fractures has long been plagued by some vexing observations. Why, for example, are osteoporotic fractures relatively rare in Asian countries like Japan, where people live as long or longer than Americans and consume almost no calcium-rich dairy products? Why, in Western countries that consume the most dairy foods, are rates of osteoporotic fractures among the highest in the world? And why has no consistent link been found between the amount of calcium people consume and protection against osteoporosis?

An alternative theory of bone health may - or may not - explain these apparent contradictions. It is the theory of low-acid eating, a diet laden with fruits and vegetables but relatively low in acid-producing protein and moderate in cereal grains. Its proponents suggest that this menu plan could lead to stronger bones than the typical American diet rich in dairy products and animal protein, often enhanced by calcium supplements.

These dietary changes might even prevent or delay other chronic conditions that rob far too many people of a wholesome old age.

The low-acid theory was first fully promulgated in 1968 by two American doctors in the leading medical journal The Lancet and has since been the subject of much debate and confusion among bone specialists.

The science behind low-acid eating and the research findings that do, and do not, support it have been spelled out in a new book, "Building Bone Vitality," by Amy Joy Lanou, an assistant professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and Michael Castleman, a health writer.

At the same time, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine are studying the possible bone benefits of adding protein supplements to the diets of older Americans who habitually consume low levels of protein.

Dr. Karl Insogna, a professor of internal medicine directing the study, said in an interview that the 18-month placebo-controlled study would determine whether raising protein intake to a more normal range could increase bone mineral density and help prevent osteoporosis in people over age 60.

Science of the Skeleton

Bones are not immutable. Rather, they are continually being broken down and rebuilt, and when breakdown exceeds buildup, they get progressively weaker. Vital to the solid framework of the body, bones play an equally important metabolic role hidden from casual observation.

Bones are the storage tank for calcium compounds that regulate the acid-base balance of the blood, which must be maintained within a very narrow range. When the blood becomes even slightly too acid, alkaline calcium compounds - like calcium carbonate, the acid-neutralizer in Tums - are leached from bones to reduce the acidity.

Studies by Dr. Bess Dawson-Hughes, at the Jean Mayer U.S.D.A. Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, and collaborators have demonstrated the acid-neutralizing ability of fruits and vegetables and the crucial role they can play in maintaining healthy bones.

The researchers note that fruits and vegetables are predominantly metabolized to alkaline bicarbonate, whereas proteins and cereal grains are metabolized to acids. The more protein people consume beyond the body's true needs, the more acidic their blood can become and the more alkaline compounds are needed to neutralize the acid.

In one study by Dr. Dawson-Hughes and colleagues, published in January in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 171 healthy men and women age 50 and older were treated with either bicarbonate or no bicarbonate. Those receiving bicarbonate, in an amount equivalent to nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily, experienced much lower levels of calcium loss in the urine, as well as a loss of N-telopeptide, the biochemical marker of bone resorption.

(By contrast, Dr. Insogna said that although eating more protein raised the loss of calcium in urine, it also improved intestinal absorption of calcium and thus might not result in bone loss.)

The Dawson-Hughes team concluded that increasing the alkaline content of the diet by eating more fruits and vegetables should be studied as a safe and low-cost approach to preventing osteoporosis and improving bone health in older Americans.

The finding is consistent with current recommendations from several federal health agencies to consume nine servings daily of fruits and vegetables. That amount has been shown to lower blood pressure and has been linked to a reduced risk of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some cancers and Alzheimer's disease. Now prevention of osteoporosis might be added to the list.

As the book authors point out, "animal foods, especially cheeses and meats, don't contain much alkaline material" and hardly enough to "neutralize all the acids they introduce into the bloodstream; the body must draw calcium compounds from bone to restore optimal blood pH," a measure of acidity. On the other hand, the alkaline material in fruits and vegetables, which are low in protein, can buffer that acidity.

Except for hard cheeses, which are acid-producing, most dairy foods, including milk, are "metabolized to compounds that are essentially neutral," Dr. Dawson-Hughes said.

In their exhaustive review of the scientific literature, Dr. Lanou and Mr. Castleman found that "two-thirds of clinical trials show that milk, dairy foods and calcium supplements do not prevent fractures." They conclude that the high fracture rate in countries that consume the most milk and dairy products results from the fact that "these affluent Western countries also consume the most meat, poultry and fish."

Lessons From Research

This does not mean that older people, many of whom chronically consume too little protein, should avoid this essential nutrient, which helps prevent frailty and the falls that result in fractures. Nor must people become vegetarians to maintain strong bones.

But it does suggest that those at the high end of protein consumption may be better off eating less protein in general and less animal protein in particular and replacing it with more fruits and vegetables. Consider adhering to the amount of protein that health experts recommend, which has a built-in safety factor of 45 percent above the minimum daily requirement and is based on ideal (not actual) body weight and age.

For an adult, that amount in grams is 0.36 multiplied by ideal body weight. Thus, a woman who should weigh 120 pounds needs only 44 grams of protein a day, the amount in 3 ounces of flounder, one piece of tofu and a cup of cooked bulgur. A 60-pound 8-year-old (the multiplier is 0.55) would need only 2 ounces of chicken and one-half cup of cottage cheese to get the recommended 32 grams of protein.

crstr1

i just read this post & i had some info about dilute hydrochloric acid raising oxygen levels, increasing white blood cells & possibly helping cancer patients...........it's amazing stuff.........the article is really old, but it helps so many things..........if anyone what the link or more info, just send me a reply.........btw, it raises alkaline levels all over the body......i can explain this, too.........

chris........ 

ibcmets

I was diagnosed with inflammatory bc with bone mets 6/09.  I was certainly in a serious condition with a very aggressive cancer.  I did not have time to alter my diet hoping for a cure.  I chose conventional medicine and also read up on alternative & complimentary medicine to add to better my health.  I did 8 months of chemo, zometa and I'm now on hormone therapy (Femara). I also immediately ordered an alkaline water filter and started eating more fruits & vegetables & highly limiting beef and non-organic meat products & milk products due to the hormone levels in milk.  I saw the movie "Food Inc." that brought to light how our food in US is prepared and where it comes from.  This might enlighten some of us of what we are actually putting in our bodies.  We really do need to understand what we are eating if we want to stay healthy.  I don't believe there is any danger in choosing to drink alkaline water or eat alkaline food choices as long as we maintain a proper balance. Most protein choices even good ones are all acidic.  I can't eat soy due to being Estrogen + (it's progressing my cancer).  I am not always strict on my food choices; but I am more conscious of what I'm eating or drinking.  I do juice more often to get the enzymes & nutrition from fresh fruits & vegetables.  When we eat; we should think is this nutritious for us; if it's loaded with sugar, alcohol & hormones & saturated fats, it most likely is not. 

I believe my food choices have helped with conventional treatment.  In 10 months; my tumor is gone, my blood pressure is normal, and my bone mets are not showing up on the scans any longer. 

 I would however caution anyone who is thinking eating nutritiously or using alternative medicine alone would cure them.  If you read these boards of cancer patients; you will find some who are vegetarian that get breast cancer.  I also have read about patients refusing conventional treatment who chose just to do alternative medicine die very quickly.  There are some oncologist that combine conventional with complimentary treatments.  I heard of the Block Center in Evanston IL by Dr. Keith BLock.  I've read his book and if I was not doing well on my current treatment; I would go see him.

Terri

kcshreve

Thank you for reviving this thread.  I am appreciative of all options. If traditional approaches were entirely effective, none of us would have a reason to be here.