alkaline diet for bone health?

peggy_j

Anyone switched to an alkaline diet for bone health? The concept: our bodies need to maintain a certain pH balance, and if we become too acidic, our bodies will leach calcium from our bones to correct the pH. For the most part, the diet involves lots of veggies and fruits, and reduced meat and dairy. But there are some "outliers" too. Nuts are alkaline but...peanuts are not nuts (which we all know) and are actually acidic. Beans, moderately acidic. Lentils, moderately alkaline.

When I first heard this idea, several years ago, it sounded like another crazy fad diet but I've had a couple of docs say there is some truth to it. My mainstream osteoporosis doc says the impact of diet is "subtle." Maybe it is, compared to post-meno estrogen loss and meds, but I still want to do all I can.

I was already vegetarian but made these tweaks a couple of months ago. (along with a few other things. Spinach has calcium, but it's not easily absorbed, so I switched from that to kale, as my go-to green. etc)

Thoughts anyone?

gb2115

I honestly don't believe this alkaline/acid diet thing. Because, your body maintains that correct pH balance on it's own...if your kidneys are working right. Otherwise you are headed into metabolic acidosis, which I don't think people are walking around with without being pretty ill. There are also digestive mechanisms in place to handle whatever you eat--acid in the stomach to break it down and then when it all enters the small intestine the pancreas releases bicarbonate to buffer so the small intestine doesn't get damaged. The body is pretty smart and can handle a lot. In kidney failure things are different but that's an entirely different thing.

MamaFelice

I was a healthy eater before BC arose. Balanced I would say, yet I avoided gluten due to wheat allergy, and tried to limit sugar intake. Since BC, I have given up flesh meat due to the extra energy needed to digest, and eliminated sugar and dairy. Though I agree that the body is made to keep itself in a state of PH balance, I know that chemo is highly acidic to the body and so I also drink a daily green smoothie and drink alkaline water with lemon (more alikinity), in an effort to help my body balance the acidity of the chemo drugs.

I'm not sure about an alkaline diet and bone health, but you can't go wrong with eating some extra greens simply because they are nutritional powerhouses! I think the anti-inflammatory diet is one to examine and apply. Good luck to you and your health! 😃

Kristiina

I hear medical professionals poo poo-ing an alkaline diet. They always comment about the blood. It is not about changing the PH of the blood (which remains constant) but there are other places in the body where Ph maybe can make a difference. How about the gut? The diet makes a lot of sense from the perspective of more veggies. I would be interested to learn more about this. For the longest time the medical community told us to avoid fat to lower cholestrol. Everything is much more complicated than a simple statement like that as we all know now.

peggy_j

Thanks everyone for your replies. Yes, I agree, the body maintains the blood pH as a constant level. But the question is, how ? The theory of the alkaline diet is: if you consume too much acidic food, then the body needs to put calcium from the bones to make get it to the correct pH.

FWIW, I've started drinking mineral water, mostly that German brand Gerolsteiner. It contains bicarbonate. I did find one study on PubMed that said the bicarbonate in mineral water helps bones too. If anyone is curious, let me know and I can try to find the paper again.