Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: cheryl j on 08/02/2016 18:09:31
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I have a friend who believes the Natural News spiel about changing your body's pH wth food, cancer won't survive in alkaline conditions.
But setting aside acid base homeostasis and things like how kidneys work for the moment, is there any way that lemons are really alkaline or have an alkalizing effect on the body? I would assume that its pH is largely determined by citric acid and lemon juice is something like 2 or 3. He says that when lemons are fully metabolized, its "dissociated minerals" are alkaline. Is there any compound in lemons that is alkaline? I don't know if that includes eating the rind.
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complete BS
You are absolutely right that lemon juice is quite acidic, as it contains significant amounts of both citric acid and ascorbic acid. Once 'fully metabolized,' lemon is the same as lime is the same as cherry is the same as white bread etc. etc.
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I think this "mythconception" originates from the idea that citrate salts can be used to "alkalinise" urine. This process is used to dissolve away some forms of kidney stone, such as those made from cysteine.
Citrate intake - usually as potassium citrate - increases bicarbonate ion secretion in the kidney, leading to an alkaline urine. Lemons, being rich in citric acid, will potentially have this effect.
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"Can lemons be alkaline?"
No.
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If you dried a lemon, then burned it, the ash would be alkaline.
However, it won't make much difference to your body. Your blood has a pH of pretty close to 7.4 or you would be too ill to read this. There are mechanisms that regulate pH quite tightly.
If you take potassium citrate then the body will oxidise the citrate to carbon dioxide and water. Most of the CO2 will be exhaled. A little will stay in the body making potassium bicarbonate which is slightly alkaline. That will be excreted via the urine and make the urine alkaline (or less acid).
Since there is at least some potassium citrate in lemon juice, it too will slightly alkalinise the urine.
But not much, and it will barely affect the blood or the rest of the body.
They could give people potassium bicarbonate directly but it makes you burp a lot and some people are not happy with that.
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I have a friend who believes the Natural News spiel about changing your body's pH wth food, cancer won't survive in alkaline conditions.
Ones diet can only really change the pH of urine , not the pH of body or blood, see ... http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet#Urine_vs_you & http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet#Death
Re: "Natural News" ...
David Gorski of ScienceBlogs, called Natural News "one of the most wretched hives of scum and quackery on the Internet," and the most "blatant purveyor of the worst kind of quackery and paranoid anti-physician and anti-medicine conspiracy theories anywhere on the Internet"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News#Criticism_and_controversies