Alkaline Diet And Cancer: What Is An Alkaline Diet?

2023 Author: Lynn Laird | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 21:10

Either health, beauty, or nutritional deficiencies, each of us finds his reason for adopting a certain diet. Even as Google is teeming with ideas for a healthy, positive lifestyle, we're not going to bring you the 11 most searched diets. Notably, the presence of alkalinizers in your daily menu will make you lose weight, increase your energy and reduce the risk of heart disease. In fact, the focus of our article will be in particular the relationship between alkaline diet and cancer. We will dare to disentangle the true from the false to try to see more clearly.

A alkaline Power supply and cancer: the chemistry of human blood

Also known as the acid-alkaline diet, it consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers, nuts and legumes, and only small amounts of meat and dairy products. Primarily, the chemistry of human blood is slightly alkaline, which is the opposite of acid. Proponents of this eating pattern believe that you should eat foods that match it. They claim that a diet high in acid disrupts your blood balance and causes disease over time, so eating more alkaline will protect you like a shield.

Since the body is a complex system, this ensures that your blood stays within its healthy, slightly alkaline range. If the red fluid becomes too acidic or too alkaline, your body automatically corrects this on its own. The blood may become slightly more acidic or alkaline after eating certain foods, but it will stay within the healthy range without a special diet. So, right away, the premise of the question is wrong: a lot of diseases, or indeed all human diseases, can survive very well in an alkaline environment, since our blood is alkaline.

Research does not stop on this subject and although the results on the alkaline diet and cancer are mixed, we still hope to be able to find the way or the means to fight the disease.

Why is the alkaline diet called the “ash diet”?

Obviously, its principle is that your diet can change the pH value, that is, the measure of the acidity or alkalinity of your body. Regardless of your metabolism, slow or fast, the conversion of food into energy takes place and is sometimes compared to fire. It involves a chemical reaction that breaks down a solid mass. However, this process occurs in a slow and controlled manner in your body.

When things burn, an ash residue remains. Likewise, the foods you eat leave behind excess “ash” called metabolic waste. These metabolic wastes can be alkaline, neutral or acidic. Followers of this diet claim that these residues can directly affect the acidity of your body.

In other words and by simple logic, if you eat foods that leave acidic ash, it makes your blood more acidic. If you eat foods that leave alkaline ash, it makes your blood more alkaline.

According to the acid-ash hypothesis, it is believed that acidic ash makes you vulnerable to disease, while alkaline ash is considered protective. By choosing foods that are more alkaline, which can aid drainage of the body, you should be able to "alkalize" it and improve your health.

This is because the food components that leave an acidic ash include protein, phosphate and sulfur, while the alkaline components include calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

What food groups are considered acidic, alkaline or neutral?

Acids: meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, eggs, cereals, alcohol

Neutrals: natural fats, starches and sugars

Alkalis: fruits, nuts, legumes and vegetables

Depending on the alkaline diet, metabolic waste or ash left over from burning food can directly affect your body's acidity or alkalinity.

Can food affect the blood?

Certainly not! We have already written that blood is alkaline on its own, with a pH of 7.36 to 7.44. This reality makes us think that when talking about an alkaline diet, it is important to understand the pH levels in the body. The pH value varies from 0 to 14:

Acid: 0.0–6.9

Neutral: 7.0

Alkaline (or basic): 7.1–14.0

However, it is important to note that the pH varies considerably within your body. While some parts are acidic, others are alkaline - there is no set level.

For example, your stomach is loaded with hydrochloric acid, which gives it a pH of 2 to 3.5 which is very acidic, but this acidity is needed to break down food. When your blood pH drops outside the normal range, it can be fatal if left untreated. Yet, this only occurs in certain medical conditions, such as ketoacidosis caused by diabetes, starvation, or alcohol consumption. While urine pH varies depending on the type of food. It is essential for your health that the pH of your blood remains constant.

A alkaline Power supply and cancer: can we treat the disease by an alkaline diet?

There is so much information about alkaline eating and cancer that it can be difficult to separate the myths from the reality. This is especially true when it comes to fad diets: for gastritis, ulcer and colitis or to avoid a bloated stomach. But what is the alkaline diet and can it prevent and treat cancer?

There is a basic theory that consuming certain foods can change the body's acid levels, also known as pH levels. Some believe that by changing the body's pH levels, you improve your health, lose weight, or even prevent cancer. So easy ?! No ! If this were true, the number of sick and obese would have been minimal.

Currently, it is the opposite! As soon as you change the way you eat, you may notice changes in the pH of your saliva or urine, as these are waste products. However, it is impossible for you to eat enough for it to have a real impact on your blood.

Some studies have shown that acidic environments promote the growth of cancer cells. The idea, therefore, is that a diet rich in alkaline foods (high pH) and low in acidic foods will raise the body's pH (make the body more alkaline) and prevent or even cure cancer. Except these are studies of cancer cells in a dish and do not represent the complex nature of tumor behavior in the human body. And food cannot change the pH of your blood.

What Should Cancer Patients Know Before Changing Their Diet?

While research shows that there is no single diet or food that can cure cancer, good nutrition can help you feel better during cancer treatment or at any other time. This is why, it is so important to speak to a doctor or dietitian before starting a new diet. The dietitian can assess your nutrition and discuss with you your nutritional goals, which may change at different stages of treatment. Likewise, the dietitian can help you limit the adverse effects of your diet on treatment, minimize side effects, and help you cope with new food sensitivities that you have developed since your diagnosis.

What is alkaline water?

While we can't comment on specific brands, most alkaline waters are like bottled water with a different mineral content. So alkaline water cannot change the pH of your blood either.

Acidity and cancer

Many people claim that cancer only thrives in an acidic environment and can be treated or even cured with an alkaline diet. However, comprehensive reviews have concluded that there is no relationship between diet-induced acidosis or the increased blood acidity caused by diet and cancer.

First, the repeated fact that food does not significantly influence blood pH. Second, even if you assume that food can dramatically change the pH of blood or other tissues, cancer cells are not limited to acidic environments.

In fact, cancer grows in normal body tissue that has a slightly alkaline pH of 7.4. Thanks to many experiments, cancer cells have been successfully grown in an alkaline environment.

While tumors grow faster in acidic environments, they themselves create this acidity. It is not the acidic environment that creates the cancer cells, but it is the cancer cells that create the acidic environment.

In short, there is no link between an acidifying diet and cancer. Cancer cells also thrive in alkaline environments.

Acidifying foods and osteoporosis

Given that osteoporosis affects more and more women after their fifties and in early menopause, one wonders whether food is the culprit. This progressive bone disease is characterized by a decrease in bone mineral content. It is especially common in postmenopausal women and can significantly increase the risk of fractures. Siding with the alkaline diet adherents is a belief that in order to maintain a constant blood pH, the body takes alkaline minerals, such as calcium from the bones, to buffer the acids in the acidifying foods you eat.

According to this theory, acidifying diets, such as the standard Western diet, will cause loss of bone mineral density. This theory is known as the "osteoporosis acid-ash hypothesis". However, it ignores the function of the kidneys which is fundamental to removing acids and regulating body pH, as the kidneys produce bicarbonate ions that neutralize acids in your blood and allow your body to tightly manage blood pH.

At the same time, the respiratory system is involved. When the bicarbonate ions in your kidneys bind to acids in your blood, they form carbon dioxide that you breathe out and water.

If we advocate the acid-ash hypothesis

Namely, this theory ignores one of the main drivers of osteoporosis - the loss of collagen protein from bones. Paradoxically, this deficiency is strongly linked to low levels of two acids in your diet - orthosilicic acid and ascorbic acid or vitamin C.

Keep in mind that scientific evidence linking food acid to bone density or risk of fracture is mixed. Clinical trials, which tend to be more specific, have concluded that acidifying diets have no impact on the calcium levels in your body.

Regardless of the claims, these diets improve bone health by increasing calcium retention and activating the hormone IGF-1 which stimulates muscle and bone repair.

As such, a diet high in protein and acidifiers is likely linked to better bone health, not worse.

As a conclusion on alkaline diet theory and cancer

To conclude our synthetic essay on alkaline diet and cancer, we would like to bridge the gap between ancestral diets and acidity and contemporary theories on nutrition. Apparently, examination of the acid-alkaline theory, both from an evolutionary and scientific point of view, reveals discrepancies.

One study estimated that 87% of pre-agricultural humans ate alkaline and formed the central argument behind the modern alkaline diet. According to more recent research, half of pre-agricultural humans ate on net alkaline diets, while the other half were on net acidifying diets. But, let's keep in mind that our ancestors lived in very different climates and had access to diverse foods. In fact, acidifying diets were more common as people moved further north of the equator, away from the tropics.

Although about half of the hunter-gatherers ate a sharp acidifying diet, modern illnesses had been much less common.

Based on unprocessed foods, the alkaline diet is quite healthy, encouraging high consumption of healthy fruits, vegetables and plant foods while limiting processed junk food.

However, the idea that the diet improves health due to its alkalizing effects is suspect and no claims have been proven so far.

Some studies suggest positive effects in a very small subset of the population. Specifically, a low protein alkalizing diet may benefit people with chronic kidney disease.