Everyone wants to have a healthy lifestyle. The key to that is diet and there are numerous types of diets some good and some bad. If you search keenly, you can see that there is no diet that is better for longevity and starving off disease than an alkaline diet. Don’t just take my word for the alkaline diet pros and cons and you can also try it out.

It is proven in the Review of Dietary plans in the Journal of Environmental health that alkaline diet balances your body’s pH and helps in reducing morbidity and mortality from various chronic diseases and ailments such as hypertension, arthritis, diabetes, low bone density and vitamin D deficiency etc.

Does Alkaline Diet really work? Alkaline Diet Plan

It is found that highly alkaline foods such as fruits and fresh vegetables, unprocessed plant-based sources of protein produces a high alkaline urine pH level. This helps in protecting healthy cells and balances the essential mineral levels. Alkaline diets also known as alkaline ash diets have proven to prevent plaque formation in blood vessels, stop calcium from accumulating in urine, prevent kidney stones, build stronger bones, reduce muscle wasting or spasms, and much more.

What is Alkaline Diet?

An alkaline diet — also known as the alkaline ash diet, alkaline acid diet, acid ash diet, acid alkaline diet and even sometimes the pH diet — is one that helps balance the blood pH level of the fluids in your body, including your blood and urine. Your pH is partially determined by the mineral density of the foods you eat. All living organisms and life forms on earth depend on maintaining appropriate pH levels, and it’s often said that disease and disorder cannot take root in a body that has a balanced pH.

The principles of the acid-ash hypothesis help make up the tenets of the alkaline diet. According to research published in Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, “The acid-ash hypothesis posits that protein and grain foods, with a low potassium intake, produce a diet acid load, net acid excretion (NAE), increased urine calcium, and release of calcium from the skeleton, leading to osteoporosis.” The alkaline diet aims to prevent this from happening by carefully taking food pH levels into consideration in an attempt to limit dietary acid intake.

Alkaline Diet ph Levels

Although some experts might not totally agree with this statement, nearly all agree that human life requires a very tightly controlled pH level of the blood of about 7.365–7.4. As Forbes Magazine puts it, “Our bodies go to extraordinary lengths to maintain safe pH levels.” Your pH can range between 7.35 to 7.45 depending on the time of day, your diet, what you last ate and when you last went to the bathroom.

If you develop electrolyte imbalances and frequently consume too many acidic foods — aka acid ash foods — your body’s changing pH level can result in increased “acidosis.”

Check out the video– Dr. Mini Nair talks about Pros and Cons of Alkaline Diet.

Benefits of Alkaline Diet 

• Protects bone density and muscle mass- Bone structure maintenance requires the intake of proper minerals. Research shows that more intake of alkaline food results in better protection from decreased bone strength and muscle waste during old age known as sarcopenia.
• Alkaline diet ensures that minerals such as calcium, magnesium and phosphate are in balance in the food- Alkaline diets also help improve production of growth hormones and vitamin D absorption, which further protects bones in addition to mitigating many other chronic diseases.
• Lowers risk of stroke and hypertension– One of the anti-aging effects of an alkaline diet is that it decreases inflammation and causes an increase in growth hormone production. This has been shown to improve cardiovascular health and offer protection against common problems like high cholesterol, hypertension (high blood pressure), kidney stones, stroke and even memory loss.
• Lowers chronic pain and inflammation– Research has shown that there is a correlation between chronic pain and low alkaline diet. Chronic acidosis contributes to headaches, chronic back pain, muscle spasms, inflammation, joint pain and menstrual symptoms. Studies conducted on people who took an alkaline diet show increase in muscle health
• Boosts Vitamin Absorption and Prevents Magnesium Deficiency- An increase in magnesium is required for the function of hundreds of enzyme systems and bodily processes. Many people are deficient in magnesium and as a result experience heart complications, muscle pains, headaches, sleep troubles and anxiety. Available magnesium is also required to activate vitamin D and prevent vitamin D deficiency, which is important for overall immune and endocrine functioning.
• Improves immune function and cancer protection- When cells lack enough minerals to properly dispose of waste or oxygenate the body fully, the whole body suffers. Vitamin absorption is compromised by mineral loss, while toxins and pathogens accumulate in the body and weaken the immune system. Cancer prevention is believed to be associated with an alkaline shift in pH due to an alteration in electric charges and the release of basic components of proteins. Alkalinity can help decrease inflammation and the risk for diseases like cancer — plus an alkaline diet has been shown to be more beneficial for some chemotherapeutic agents that require a higher pH to work appropriately.

Cons of an Alkaline diet

Proponents of this diet advice limiting meat, dairy and eggs, all of which are beneficial to health and contain important proteins and nutrients. Also, the regulation of pH by the human body can cause counter effects for the benefits given by the alkaline diet.

Conclusion

By the end of this article, you would have been completely convinced that alkaline diet is the way to go. It has so many benefits to the body. A wise person would start having an alkaline diet for the rest of his life. Organic alkaline foods help in finding the right balance between taste and health. It also helps you to maintain proper weight. It helps you to burn fat and protect the body from obesity. Consuming an alkaline diet gives your body a chance to achieve normal leptin levels and feel satisfied by eating the number of calories you really need. At Ayurhealing, we help in more detail for 

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