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06/12/2006: "Acid or Alkaline - What is your pH?"
My research into health has caused me to stumble over a couple of references regarding the body’s pH balance. You want your body to be in the neutral range between 6.8 to 7.2. I read somewhere that every person who dies of cancer has a low pH level or high acid content. Low pH is also blamed for sleep problems, obesity, allergies, blood pressure trouble, depression, digestive trouble, hypoglycemia, arthritis, headaches, and all sorts of immune challenges. Studies have shown that cancer cannot live in an oxygen rich pH balanced cell. All of our diseases thrive in an acidic environment. Did you know that 38% of Americans will get cancer – at the turn of the century (1900) it was 3%. Diabetes has risen 400% in the past 20 years. And 50% of people over 70 will get Alzheimer’s – it didn’t even exist 60 years ago!
There are many things that can increase the acidity in your body. These are a lack of exercise, stress, medications, food and drink. Do they sound familiar? Once again, a call for a regular exercise routine, an effort to reduce stress, the drinking of lots of water (1 gallon or more a day) and meals with lots of vegetables and fruit. High alkaline forming foods include vegetables like spinach, celery, garlic, green beans, cabbage, lettuce, peas, carrots, red beets, lemon, eggplant, avocado, parsley, lime lemon and legumes and seeds like lima beans, soy beans, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and flax seeds. Foods responsible for high acid in the body include artificial sweeteners, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, pop corn, beer, wine, liquor, coffee, ketchup, mayonnaise, fried foods, ice cream, vinegar, candy, soft drinks and chocolate. Coke has a pH of about 3. To neutralize the acid in a can of coke it would take about 30 glasses of water. When you drink cola, the body uses its own buffers to correct. These include the calcium from your bones and your body’s potassium reserves.
You can get a pH test kit at most health food stores. Checking your morning urine with a test strip is the best way to measure your metabolic pH. If you want to research further, books such as “The pH Miracle” and “Sick & Tired!” by Robert O. Young and “The Feel Good Food Guide” by Deborah Page Johnson.
“The doctor of the future will give little medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” – Thomas A. Edison
