There’s been a lot of coverage recently about this nonsense around ‘alkaline eating’ and how acid levels cause cancer etc.

Someone I know who is recovering from cancer and has got quite a lot of attention on social media is now posting a lot of this stuff and people are weighing in to support the claims. My view on this is that it’s as dangerous as letting people carry on believing that race is linked to criminal behaviour – it’s based on ignorance and ignorance has to be the enemy.

So, can someone with medical knowledge either provide the refuting argument to this (or tell me it’s actually true):

When talking about body PH, it is the interstitial fluid that is being discussed. Blood PH is always kept the same by the body no matter what. Also stomach acid is obviously a requirement for digestion. What we are therefore looking to affect is the PH of saliva and urine as these reflect the interstitial environment. It is a fact that cancer creates acidity in the bodily tissue and thrives in an acidic environment. Stress creates acidity in the body so by reducing stress, we change PH also minerals affect the PH and of course diet – dairy and meat being highly acidic and also sugar.

sounds complete woo woo to me. I don’t know enough biochemistry to state so categorically tho

https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/coral2.html

http://www.webmd.com/diet/a-z/alkaline-diets

Plenty more available via google

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet

It is utter ballcocks. Absolutely no credible scientific evidence to support it.

“Stress creates acidity” – complete rubbish, stress can create free radicals and there is some evidence to suggest antioxidants would be beneficial e.g. Vit C (an acid) and Alpha Lipoic Acid.

It’s a load of shit.

HTH

Read up on the army captain (iirc) who had cancer and died but believed this treatment would save her. It was on BBC website last week. I’m out and battery about to die so can’t search for link, shall post it later

It’s a load of shit.

I know, or at least I believe it is. But the problem is that these days unless you have a credible refutation you run the risk of legitimising other people’s stupidity and their claims. We need the science to show up the ignorance.

People can become desperate at times to find a cure for illness they have, part of the coping mechanism I suspect. They then seek out treatments sadly falling for unconventional ones that may be absolutely no benefit or possibly harmful. Changing their mind will be a near impossible challenge.

Don’t believe the hype – 10 persistent cancer myths debunked

Sounds made up bullshit which leads me to believe somewhere someplace some evil bastard is making a fortune selling hope to dying desperate people.

Here’s the link and shows the evil git making a fortune

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38650739

Read up on the army captain (iirc) who had cancer and died but believed this treatment would save her. It was on BBC website last week.

There is reference to it in a TV programme which is still available on iPlayer:
Horizon

pH = numerical scale used to specify the acidity or alkalinity of an aqueous solution

PH = Picture House, a chain of cinemas

Public House surely?

The statement of ‘blood ph is kept the same no matter what’ is so wrong, anything else after it must be complete bollox..

It’s that complete lack of understanding of physiology that mashes claims like this dangerous…

They should read up on ‘diabetic keto acidosis’, ‘lactic acidosis’…as all other manner of acidotic conditions…

I imagine all that panting would have then settle into a nice respiratory alkalosis….

DrP

Also worth being aware of the Cancer Act of 1939, the part relating to false promotion is still in place

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Act_1939

Agree with everything above. Cancer research UK blog linked to by DRAC is particularly clear. Alkaline diet, leaving aside the difficulty of establishing what that should consist of, is clearly worthless as anything taken by mouth is rendered immediately acidic by the acid in the stomach.

That leaves infusions of alkaline, usually sodium bicarbonate. This doesn’t work as the body has an internal environment and goes to great lengths to maintain/restore its normal pH as illustrated in the diagram above. Even in Diabetic Keto Acidosis, where the pH can drop to less than 7, that is fairly acidic, we have given up giving large amounts of sodium bicarbonate to “correct” this after it became clear that this was counterproductive with the body struggling to clear the bicarbonate, that from its point of view has appeared from nowhere, while already struggling to clear the ketones causing the acidosis.

Mmmmmmmmm! Pear drops.

Ratadog thanks dude – this is very helpful as are all the other posts above.

I know, or at least I believe it is. But the problem is that these days unless you have a credible refutation you run the risk of legitimising other people’s stupidity and their claims. We need the science to show up the ignorance.

There’s no point – its like trying to have a rational discussion with someone about religion or vegetarianism – anyone who has reached the point of “preaching” their viewpoint is usually already too far gone to want to listen to rational arguments, and has practiced presenting their arguments in a way that obfuscates opposing views.

As a general rule though as soon as someone uses “It is a fact…” it usually means, its not, or at least a gross simplification of something to support the argument they are making! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1977628/?page=1