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Old 08-08-2006, 03:09 PM   #3
R.B.
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,843
Another reason for taking acidic drinks out of diet

More food for thought

RB


http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/81/2/341

"Acid-base balance
After digestion, absorption, and metabolism, nearly all foods release either acid or bicarbonate (base) into the systemic circulation (146, 147). As shown in Table 5Go, fish, meat, poultry, eggs, shellfish, cheese, milk, and cereal grains are net acid producing, whereas fresh fruit, vegetables, tubers, roots, and nuts are net base producing. Legumes yield near-zero mean acid values, which reflects an overlapping distribution from slightly net acid producing to slightly net base producing. Not shown in Table 5Go are energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods such as separated fats and refined sugars that contribute neither to the acid nor the base load. Additionally, salt is net acid producing because of the chloride ion (146).


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TABLE 5 Potential net acid (or base) loads of 17 food groups1


The typical Western diet yields a net acid load estimated to be 50 mEq/d (148). As a result, healthy adults consuming the standard US diet sustain a chronic, low-grade pathogenic metabolic acidosis that worsens with age as kidney function declines (146, 149). Virtually all preagricultural diets were net base yielding because of the absence of cereals and energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods—foods that were introduced during the Neolithic and Industrial Eras and that displaced base-yielding fruit and vegetables (147). Consequently, a net base-producing diet was the norm throughout most of hominin evolution (147). The known health benefits of a net base-yielding diet include preventing and treating osteoporosis (150, 151), age-related muscle wasting (152), calcium kidney stones (153, 154), hypertension (155, 156), and exercise-induced asthma (157) and slow the progression of age- and disease-related chronic renal insufficiency (158)."
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