As promised last week, this week I am doing a series of three posts to provide some more in depth information about three key nutrition areas that I have tried to target in the improvements to Chris’s diet:
- Omega 3 and 6 ratio
- Acid-base balance
- Different carbohydrate sources
I’m explaining why these are areas to look at when planning your diet and why, in particular, they matter to Chris with his muscle and strength gaining goals.
Today it is the turn of the acid-base balance.
What is the acid-base balance?
Acid-base balance is the shorthand to describe the requirement for the human body to keep itself in homeostasis. Base, in the name “acid-base” relates to alkalinity.
The body is very sensitive to pH levels and needs to keep pH levels with a certain range in order to function. If this balance is not maintained then the enzymes that are critical to our bodily functions can no longer operate and, ultimately, we will die.
All foods present themselves to the kidneys as either acid or alkaline base. Once the body has processed these we are left with a net acid load or a net alkaline/base load. Our bodies then use natural mechanisms to adjust this and ensure that it remains within a certain pH range.
What happens if acid levels from our diet are too high?
If you have a high acid-load on the body this will be recognised by the cells and they will take action to rectify the balance through two possible techniques.
The first is hypercalciuria. Since calcium has a strong base (alkalinity) it is leached from the bones. Once the calcium has neutralised the acid in the body it is discarded in urine along with the neutralised acid. Hypercalciuria therefore degrades existing bone and also reduces the creation of new bone.
The second technique used by the body is negative nitrogen balance. Glutamine binds hydrogen ions to form ammonium, enabling the body to then expel the acidic hydrogen ions (along with the glutamine that has been attached to these ions). Unfortunately for us, skeletal muscle contains the greatest glutamine store in the body. Our bodies therefore break down muscle in order to release the glutamine and excrete it resulting in the permanent loss of glutamine from the body.
How do I know whether foods are acidic or alkaline?
In 1995, Remer and Manz calculated the Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) of various foods and the PRAL is a measure that is still used by people today when assessing the acidity of various foodstuffs. I’ve included links to a couple of sites that have tables of PRAL values for common foods later on in this article.
As a general rule meat, fish, dairy, grains and eggs are all acidic, while fruit and vegetables are alkaline.
Broccoli - a good base
Interestingly hard cheeses and some other dairy products also give some of the highest PRAL scores. So when you consume lots of dairy products, thinking you are improving your calcium levels, you could easily end up with exactly the same amount of calcium in your body as you started with, or possibly even less.
Where can I learn more?
There are numerous different sources of information about acid-base balance available on the internet.
- An excellent introduction to this was written by John Berardi for Testosterone Nation. This includes a handy table of the PRAL levels of different foods.
- Wikipedia not only gives a readable introduction to acid-base, but also provides links to several other acid-base tutorials and University sites in the “External Links” section.
- Another summary of acid-base, including details of how to calculate it yourself, can be found on the Bitter Poison site.
- Finally, IronMan Magazine published an article highlighting the study carried out in 2008 by Ceglia et al. on the use of potassium bicarbonate as a supplement to help increase your alkaline levels.
Summary
My take home lesson for today is that we should be taking in a good helping of alkaline foods every day and preferably a little with every meal – plenty of fruit and vegetables.
By doing so we can hopefully keep our bodies closer to a neutral or alkaline level and minimise the risks of:
- losing calcium from bones through hypercalciuria; and
- skeletal muscle being broken down to release glutamine due to the negative nitrogen balance.
If you can’t get enough fruit and vegetables into your diet then you should be considering supplementing with potassium bicarbonate.
It’s a frightening thought that we could be spending all this dedicated time in the gym building up muscle and bone density only to reverse (or at least hinder) the effects by creating an acidic environment in our bodies due to our diet.
What do you think?
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