rumrunn6

was in NY for Xmas and a nephew told me about Tom Brady's alkaline diet where he avoids things like beer wine & coffee. anyone ever hear of that? anyone try such a "clean" diet?

bluefoxicy

You will find a lot of bull****, horse ****, and plain old **** **** when discussing diet, nutrition, and exercise. Things ranging from lactic acid build-up causing muscle fatigue (this can't happen--you would die) to people claiming you can train your body to naturally burn fat by not eating within 4 hours (before and after) of exercising. This extends even as far as the major debates over whether salt is actually bad for you (blood pressure is thought to increase for about 3 days if sodium intake increases, and then return to normal: chronic high salt intake apparently has no health effects) to whether fat or carbs are bad for you; I've even had a certified health professional tell me that nothing over 10-15 grams of protein is absorbed by the body, and the yellow color in your piss is all excess protein being ejected (i.e. eating 50 pounds of lean meat won't provide any calories!), which is obviously wrong (and also scientifically proven to be crap).

Eating certain acidic foods will cause issues in your digestive system. You can develop heart burn. Other foods cause your body to eliminate acid in different ways: gout occurs when uric acid is crystalized in the joints. These results have lead people to believe that eating acidic or alkaline food changes your blood pH--which would kill you.

Doctors often recommend avoiding meat, carbohydrates, and alcohol to handle gout. That is: avoid all food. Modern medicine has debunked some of this, but it's certainly true that diet can cause your body to produce biproducts such as uric acid at a higher rate. This doesn't mean your blood pH is higher; it means it's being managed more: you're getting rid of more uric acid, because it's being produced faster.

Some people extrapolate incorrectly from all this, and conclude (wildly incorrectly) that acidic food is taken directly into the blood. Some people believe soda and beer will bring carbonated water into the blood stream, making it acidic (you would die from acidosis and an aneurysm caused by an air embolism in the brain, heart, and everything else), or that sugar will make your blood acidic (Fructose will cause increased urea production). They take this further: eating alkalized foods will deacidify your system, boost your immune system, make you stronger, healthier, etc.

You even get Kangen water people trying to sell a fancy water filter which they claim alkalazies the water to make your blood more alkaline and provide an array of health effects.

Medically, your diet can cause various effects from heart burn (your stomach is susceptible to anything you swallow) to toxic byproducts. Toxic byproducts are cleared out, but producing more means your body has to metabolize them faster; this eventually fails, hence gout and such. Inky caps even block an intermediate stage of alcohol metabolism: they're not poisonous on their own, but they make alcohol fatally toxic for about 3 days (don't ever have a beer with sauteed inky caps). Nevertheless, this does not equate to "acidic diet bad, alkaline diet good".

My typical advice is to ignore any and all dietary guidelines unless you have a health issue. Eat at Dunkin' Donuts all the frickin' time, whatever. If your cholesterol is good, your heart's fine, you're slim and buff because of all that cycling, then you're healthy. Don't eat poisonous crap; modify your diet or physical activity level if you start getting unhealthy; and seek help from a dietician if you start developing diseases which are diet-sensitive. If you're burning 6000kcal/day, eating a piece of birthday cake every day won't give you diabeetus; eating a whole birthday cake every day might; and you probably want to not do either if you already have pre-diabeetus, or are developing gout. If you sit around watching TV for 11 hours/day, your breakfast should not be birthday cake and beer (it doesn't really matter: you're not going to get healthy through diet and couch surfing).

Human metabolisms differ, but the basic foundation of human biology doesn't. An alkaline diet (which probably has no meaning in context) won't help general health; if you have a disease, your dietician will recommend correct dietary adjustments.

rumrunn6

wow, had to google those inky caps!

Carbonfiberboy 

Hey, back in the 60's alkaline diet was all the rage with some hippie sub-sub-subcultures. You wouldn't believe the weird stuff I ate. Yeah, it's nonsense.

rumrunn6

haven't heard too many resolutions, mine include avoiding white sugar, white four baked goods, fried food, red meat, frozen meals and corn oil, and I'll try to have more olive oil, beans, strawberries, grapes, green tea, calcium, vitamin D, folic acid and selenium. ok it's in writing, so I have to do it!

Adam65

About 5 years ago I started (not 100% strictly) alkaline diet and I lost 23 kg within 9 weeks (not a minute of sport and not a minute of hunger within that time). I was not really fat, just a bit overweight, I am Very tall so that 23 kg made me looking lot better but it was not huge drop in relation to my previous weight.
My skin was lot better, I was energetic and unstoppable at work. It worked very well for me, my blood pressure also dropped, I slept better and stopped snoring (normal reactions when loosing weight).

ThermionicScott 

Great. Now tell us if your overall calorie intake changed.

Adam65

I will rather tell you to forget about "calories intake".

GeorgeBMac

That was a pretty good synopsis of just how complex human physiology in general is -- and specifically how complex nutrition and metabolism are... Yet diet gurus continue to get rich selling reductionist, over-simplified books and programs to those looking for the silver-bullet that will bring health and special powers...

It is important that we, as a society, conduct the basic, reductionist research that we (as a society) can learn from. But I for one approach any over-simplified, silver bullet solution with a critical mind and extreme caution.

rumrunn6

knowledge is power

Tabagas_Ru

Ask some questions: What does an acidic condition in the body lead to? What does the body draw from to buffer acid in the body? How is acid base balance in the body maintained? What endogenous exogenous factors affect acid base balance? "What changes in food and lifestyle have led to diseases that were once unknown? Is your lifestyle and nutrition conducive to health? What has research found? Do you know how to interpret research and stats? How much money can you make writing a best selling diet book?

The list goes on, no one here has all the answers, only you do.

Just because something is said so often it is repeated and considered the truth does not make it true. "Two legs good four legs bad" "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." "If you don't stop that you'll go blind!"

GeorgeBMac

Medical science does have pretty solid understanding and answers to those questions -- including complete physiologic and chemical flowcharts of how the body maintains its preferred acid-base balance (mostly through complex chemical actions initiated by the pulmonary, renal and GI systems). For example:
Medscape: Medscape Access

Metabolic Acidosis: Acid-Base Regulation and Disorders: Merck Manual Professional

But, of late, acid/alkaline balance has become a money maker of the mainstream dietary gurus and media offering their potions to manage the body's acid-base balance -- which a healthy body is already VERY capable of handling because maintaining that balance within a very tight range is critical to life itself. But, when something (such as respiratory distress) causes it to get out of balance then the person's life becomes precarious -- which is why it is a major focus of the nurses and physicians in ICU's...

rumrunn6

I was interested to read that even though a healthy body can self adjust, watching your diet can releive the stress of those processes having to work so hard.

Tabagas_Ru

How does the body "self adjust" and how does diet "relieve the stress"?

Dudelsack 

I've been playing chess too much. I saw the title and thought it read "Alekhine's diet". If it helped me concentrate more...

ThermionicScott 

Sure, but I'll also forget about alkalinity having anything to do with your weight loss and other improvement without more evidence to support it.

gregf83 

At the end of the day all successful diets result in a reduced calorie intake (relative to calories expended). Most diets end up reducing your selection of foods which makes it easier to eat less. The alternative is to just eat a balanced diet and be mindful of how much you are eating.

Adam65

What took me 27 years to learn and understand, can not be shared and especially-explained here in several sentences.
Also, it was not and it is not my intention to convince anybody to do anything nor to "prove" anything re healthy food.
I told in short what I experienced and even shorter what I learned about "calorie intake" and that is all I am going to say.
Everybody do what they want with it.

headloss 

I hate pseudoscience... The worst of it claims that an alkaline diet prevents cancer; the following is a good break down.

The pH Myth: Part 1
The Acid-Alkaline Myth: Part 2
The Alkaline Diet: Is There Evidence That an Alkaline pH Diet Benefits Health?

That said, there are other good reasons to avoid beer, wine, and coffee.

Tabagas_Ru

Have you read the referenced articles contained in your links?

headloss 

Those, plus about thirty more. What claim do you wish to contest? I posted the links which I felt were good summaries for someone that is unfamiliar with the acid-ash hypothesis.

Here are some other useful links I have book marked that set the stage and show some of the ongoing discussion...

https://www.nutritionj.com/content/8/1/41
https://link.springer.com/article/10....-0571-0#page-1
https://drbenkim.com/ph-body-blood-fo...d-alkaline.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11446566
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...mr.090515/full
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1111185514.htm

Carbonfiberboy 

The study referenced in #20 sounded like: eat food, not too much, mostly plants, mostly organic. I agree with that.

Tabagas_Ru

Would that be an alkaline diet?

Carbonfiberboy 

Beats me. Do I care? It's the AHA, AMA, ADA, and Michael Pollan diet. Also known as eating sensibly. The "mostly organic" part was a nice addition from the study. It's what I've done for 40 years and still seems like a good idea. The Associations can't recommend it or they'd get in trouble with Big Ag. It does need more study and that's a fact.

headloss 

More or less sums it up for me as well... everything in moderation, low glycemic index, plenty of fiber, drink water, etc.

Personally, I don't put much weight on buying organic, it's mostly marketing. Those dirty dozen lists aren't actually based on anything, just arbitrary values. Organic crops use pesticides too, just "organic" pesticide instead of synthetic pesticide (all the same to me, pesticide is pesticide). Your money though... the only "true organic" is what you grow yourself or buy local and know the farmer and I absolutely support both of those!