Saliva testing? Uh oh:

http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quacker...ests/reams.html

Let's think about this from a physiology standpoint. Whatever the pH of the foods you eat, the pH of stomach acid will override the majority of it and the chyme (food you ate mixed with digestive juices) that enters the small intestine has a pH of around 2 (very acid). Soon after entrance into the small intestine, the pancreas and gallbladder do their job and neutralize chyme so that the contents of the small intestine become slightly basic.
Bottom line..no matter what we eat, our digestive systems take over and pretty much determine what the pH of our digesting food is based on the location within the gastrointestinal tract.

I would suggest that any improvement in symptoms from a change in diet is due to removing a food or foods that the person was sensitive to and substituting them with foods they are not.

ETA: Yup...I just checked the list from one of the links attached earlier and sure enough, the 'acid foods' are those that many people are sensitive to such as dairy, nuts and grains so it shouldn't be a huge surprise that removing them from the diet would make a person who is sensitive to them feel better almost immediately. Nothing to do with pH, but with allergy.

Saliva PH.

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/dental/oralbio...bicarbonate.htm

The site explains why it is bicarbonate that controls saliva PH, and theatbicarbonate varies with saliva flow rate and that carbonic anhydrase isoenzyme VI (CA IV) is what seems to control everything. They have equations and graphs and all sorts of science sounding stuff.

And for a scientific paper says esssentially the same thing try this journal.

One more entry and I'll let this one go. There are definitely a few people here who take exceptions to Naturopath's. I have never used one but I would likely have more faith in their methods than most of the medical professionals that I have dealt with. From what I have read and heard they tend to work with promoting "Wellness" vs. "Procedures" and that has my backing any day.


My pH level was been as low as 6.8, which going by posts above would have me dead or keeled over. I'm definitely not and since going LC and getting adequate water in I have never been tested that low again.
How does it get that low (Acidic)? Eating Carby food along with protein and taking part in sports activities without replenishing your water.
None of my posts were anti - Low Carb, since I believe it to be an extremely healthy way to eat, particularly when overweight or with a Lipid problem. If there was a healthier or more nutritional way to eat I would definitely be there.

What has happened in my case is that I am possibly more prone to a lower pH since my first stones at 18, and lower blood pH works away at pottassium and calcium stores, (in my case bones) causing small particles to collect as "Bone Detritis" to form Calcium Oxalate Kidney Stones. My stone production may have actually increased during my first 18 months on LC (Protein Power), since I met my Protein Target and relied heavily on bars and fake foods as I overcame the initial sweet withdrawal. I have not had a large stone in a year now and believe it relates to increased water consumption and more fruits and vegetables for my carb choices.
I have never tried a saliva test for pH, although I do use Chem Stiks, almost monthly to check for Hemoglobin and Protein in the urine (both indicators of stone movement along the urinary tract). The Excess protein on the strip is partly from ingested protein but mainly from new tissue building (Scarring) when stones are passing. The strips also check pH, Ketosis, sugar, and other things including Leukocytes and the pH changes there are minimal.

The only reason that I spoke up on this issue is that I and many others who have posted on board, initially went strictly by meeting their protein targets and paid little attention to where their carb limit came from. When I was doing this my blood pH was more acidic (lower). When I eat more fruits and veggies it is closer to neutral or halfway.
Even though slightly more acidic than most, I would still class my health in the top 5% of my age group based on Lipid Profile, Coronary Event Marker, how fast I heal and many other factors. Eating LC does this for most of us.

To answer LowcarbBarb "If I'm drinking adequate water (more than 72 oz. a day), eating green veg., such as spinach and brocolli, but I eat 1 orange a day and add fresh lemon juice to all my water (it's not too sour, just for flavor), am I consuming too much acid?"

As mentioned earlier in another post, the stomach neutralizes or transforms much of this into new nutrients. I was surprised but an orange, although acidic, has an alkaline effect on the body/blood. Getting your water in and healthy choices in fruits and veggies definitely balances pH.

Some of these links come from doctors, some from Health Food Nutritionists, but all affirm their belief in eating in such a way to balance blood pH.

Problems with low pH Blood
http://www.cleanse.net/newsite/articles/minerals.html

Acid-Alkaline Balance and Your Health
http://www.price-pottenger.org/Arti...id_alk_bal.html

OVERACIDITY AND OVERGROWTH OF YEAST, FUNGUS AND MOULDS
http://www.snyderhealth.com/summary_Young.htm

Balancing the body’s pH - Small changes make big impact on metabolic functions
http://www.naturalfoodsmerchandiser...strSite=NFMSite

Alkalize for Health
http://www.biotherapy-clinic.com/alkalize.html

Role of pH in All Health Conditions
http://altmedangel.com/ph.htm

Again I am not a health freak (aside from being in the Low Carb Camp) .
I have not read the Atkins books but have read a several others and they have all stressed the importance of healthy choices in your carb selections and of those that I have read, they all showed a preference for whole foods in the form of LC fruits and vegetables which are almost all alkaline foods as far as blood pH goes. I know fellow low carbers who live off shakes, bars, various meats and fake foods. I was in there eating that way as well.

Sorry, Ottawa, but a blood pH level of 6.8 is incompatible with life. Your saliva or urine may well have been 6.8, but never your blood, or you would be dead. No ifs, buts or maybes.

As others have mentioned, normal blood is kept (mostly by the kidneys) at a range of between 7.35 and 7.45. A blood pH of 7.2 is considered extremely acidotic, and the patient would be in Intensive Care having the underlying condition aggressively treated.

Rosebud

Your pH level of what? Urine? Saliva? Blood? Sweat? Seminal fluid? Tears? Muscle tissue? How was it measured?
I can assure you that if the pH level of your blood was 6.8, you would be dead or very near it. Here is a quote from one of your own links above:

It seems to me that you are making the assumption that all fluids of the body have or should have the same pH level and nothing could be farther from the truth.
A pH of 6.8 is actually within normal range for urine and would not be considered 'low' by any lab in the country.




Again, balances the pH of what? Urine? Saliva? Blood? Here is another quote from one of your links:



In other words, what you eat has little (if any) effect on the pH of the blood.
I'm not arguing that the pH of urine and saliva don't vary to a fairly wide degree and those are, to a certain extent, influenced by what you eat but that's not the only thing that can influence pH of urine or saliva.
For example, if I don't drink enough fluids, I can predict with fairly good certainty that the pH of my urine will be quite different than if I had drunk 2 liters of water in the span of a few hours and then checked.

I agree with others, most likely you are confusing the pH of some other fluid (like urine) with blood pH. Perhaps urine that is relatively more acidic might contribute to your stones (possibly), but, this probably depends on a few factors like whether or not one has a susceptability to kidney stones. One could have a susceptaiblity to stones for reasons unrelated to the pH level of your urine - in other words, the pH level is triggering a preexisting sensitivity, not a cause for concern itself, or indicative of disease. Sort of how if I eat sugar sweetened branflakes, skim milk, and bananas for breakfast, I'll get an earth-shattering hypo. But it's not that the branflakes/bananas themselves are a problem, it's more that my body's sugar metabolism is FUBAR and I need to eat lower carb to avoid the FUBARness of my metabolism. This is probably the same thing with kidney stones. Foods that increase acid pH of urine might trigger this problem, and cause the unpleasantness of stones... even if the pH of urine is normal, it's relatively acidic enough to cause stones for susceptable people.

Woo,
it depends what kind of stones one has, like calcium oxalate stones (most common) thrive in more alkaline urine, so lowering urine pH helps to prevent new from forming. But stones made from uric acid love acidic environment.
I think the most acidic food are those with high carb and sugar content, the worst being soft drinks and colas that are loaded with sugar and phosphoric acid. Too much protein can result in uric acid stones in suseptable individuals or make existing condition worst.
It's more than just eating acidic/alcaline food, some food that taste acidic (like lemon) is actually alkaline but banans are highly acidic. I can only tell that banans especially combined with cereal and /or oatmeal give me inbearable heartburn while lemons are fine.

Lemons are acidic.

Bananas probably give you heartburn for the same reason any carb-laden food gives me heartburn and for the same reason heartburn vanishes on LC: it's the carbs.

Hi Guys,

In order to determine if a person is in acidosis or alkalosis, health professionals with draw an ABG (Arterial Blood Gas) This lets them know a few things: Percent of oxygen, percent of carbon dioxide. We also want to know what the pH is and the bicarb level. There are different types of acidosis and alkalosis (metabolic and respiratory). If you are in metabolic acidosis (let's say that your bicarb level is low), your body will compensate and cause your to hypervenilate to blow of excess CO2 and increase pH. pH, by the way, stands for powers of Hydrogen. It's a measurement of hydrogen.

Blood pH is maintained within a very narrow margin. The body will compensate for altered metabolic conditions by changing respirations. In turn, your metabolism can be altered in response to respiratory malfunctions (COPD, asthma, CO2 retainer). Cells cannot live, divide, and function properly if the blood pH is altered. You need to take into account that electrolytes play a key role in body functions. Levels of Sodium, Potassium, Chloride, Magnesium, and Calcium influence every body system. Normal cardiac function cannot be maintained if Sodium and Potassium levels are not what they should be. Calcium also plays a huge role in blood pressure regulation. We all know that Sodium is lost through our renal system (ie we pee it out). Potassium follows Sodium. Many of the medications people take to control edema and high blood pressure alter electrolyte levels. Electrolyte levels and blood pH go hand in hand, interconnected.

So, if our water loss during induction causes us to pee out Sodium (and therefore also Potassium), we might experience some side effects. Muscle cramps might be one of them. Of course, many of the foods now available to us such as nuts, bacon, sausage, etc are high in sodium and potassium.

My point is this: Our bodies are very complex systems that *somehow* work to make us live. We have fail-safes and redundant "back up" systems internally in place. (for example, the conduction system of the heart has at least 2 "back-ups" by which electrical pulses can be sent if our primary AV node fails to conduct a pulse) Cutting out carbs on induction probably isn't going to have any poor effects on an otherwise healthy individual, even if we end up losing electrolytes initially.

Just my two cents (keep the change)