Will Soda Pop be the Death of America? Diet or Not!

May 25 , 2005 by Doctor Fitness

I was doing some research for my local radio show on pH and health. I like this subject as I feel it holds the key to longevity and our overall well-being.

What I was about to uncover was more disturbing than it was educating. I knew this stuff, I just never thought about it.

When I first looked at pH and health, it was about 7 years ago when I was looking at the cause of my own health problem with disseminated Valley Fever. I revitalized my interest when I was searching to help my brother-in-law who had just been diagnosed with cancer.

Most people don�t realize how important these 2 letters, pH, actually are.� In fact they have no idea what pH means and how it affects our health.

Potential of hydrogen is what pH stands for. It means how well our 60 trillion cells make energy and how we sufficiently rid ourselves of the acid/waste our bodies produce.

Hydrogen that we get from our food (all foods contain hydrogen), reacts with oxygen inside each cell to make ATP, our cell�s food. It is the efficiency of how we make H+ into ATP that determines our overall health and well-being.

Hydrogen that is not being used well accumulates as acids. This can happen when our cells run excessively anaerobic (low oxygen), ATP is not produced efficiently, and we produce lactic acid and CO2, both acids instead of H2O and CO2.�� Take a look at how energy is made in the cell furnace. When we accumulate excessive acids we feel tired. Most people are running excessively anaerobic due to bad diets, lack of exercise and stress.

You want to be aerobic.

During normal metabolism our cells produce acids (waste), and our body eliminates it through our kidneys and respiration (breathing). We use a buffering system that keeps our cells alkaline (aerobic). The human body while an acid producer, needs a slightly alkaline environment to be healthy. Our arterial blood pH along with the cells has a pH of 7.35 to 7.45. Venous blood, the part of the circulatory system that contains metabolic waste for disposal has a pH of 7.31 to 7.41. Neutral is 7, anything below is acid, above alkaline. As you can see even our venous blood is alkaline.

How important is your pH?

The pH scale goes from 0 to 14 and is logarithmic, which means that each step is ten times the previous. In other words, a pH of 4.0 is 10 times more acid than 5.0, 100 times more acid than 6.0 and 1,000 times more acid than 7.0. So as you can see, pH is extremely important.

Acid and Alkaline Minerals and Foods

Minerals with a negative electrical charge are attracted to the H+ ion. These are called acid minerals. Acid minerals include: chlorine (Cl-), sulfur (S-), phosphorus (P-). These acid minerals form hydrochloric acid (HCl), sulfuric acid (H2SO4), and phosphoric acid (H3PO4). Minerals with a positive electrical charge are attracted to the negatively charged OH- ion. These are called alkaline minerals. These minerals are health promoting and keep are pH in life giving balance.

Nutritionally important alkaline minerals include calcium (Ca++), potassium (K+), magnesium (Mg+), and sodium (Na+). To determine if a food is acid or alkaline, it is burned and the ash is mixed with water. If the solution is acid or alkaline then the food is called acid or alkaline. Ash is the mineral content of the food. This is why vegetables are so health promoting. The vitamins are secondary.
http://www.healingdaily.com/conditions/saliva-ph-test.htm

Minerals that we consume make our body�s organs and functions run smoothly, and serve as the regulator of our cellular and blood pH. Alkaline minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium in their pure form are unstable and are highly reactive if they are presented unbound or attached to another molecule, in this case, an acid like chloride, phosphorus, sulphur or iodine. Organic acids like citric acid or aspartic acid� (aspartate) can also be used and bound to a mineral to stabilize it.

Mix a drop of water to pure potassium and sparks fly. Bind it to bicarbonate and drop water on it and nothing happens. The bicarbonate makes it stable.

Minerals make up the tools that turn on enzyme activity and electrical response known as the electron transport or respiratory chain. The electron transport or respiratory chain gets its name from the fact electrons are transported to meet up with oxygen from respiration at the end of the chain. They make our cells work.�� That includes building bones, make the heart function, allow us to think and make us who we are.

If the body over produces acids, we are then pre-disposed to getting sick. Being acidic indicates that your mineral stores of these key electrolytes are becoming depleted from your cells, the final place being your bones. http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/596electransport.html

Our skeleton serves 2 purposes; 1) hold the body together, 2) act as a mineral reserve low during times of stress, to keep our cells producing and eliminating used energy.

Our modern lifestyles are extremely taxing to the skeleton!

Most Americans today enjoy a nice cold cola or soda more often than they should and this excess is costing us dearly.

For example, as researchers Barzel and Massey calculate, the pH of colas with phosphoric acid is 2.8 to 3.2. However, the kidney cannot excrete urine with a pH much lower than 5, without significantly damaging the genitourinary tract. Neutral is 7. To achieve a urinary pH of 5, a 12 oz. (330mL) can of cola would have to be diluted 100-fold, requiring an additional 33 liters of urine. Otherwise, a corresponding amount of buffer must be drawn from the body to neutralize the excess acid.

Because 33 liters of urine is approximately 8 � gallons we could never come up that amount of fluid so the acid buffers that are normally needed for cellular health are used to bring the urine pH up to a tolerable level to pass the acids out of the body without damaging the genitourinary tract.

This is equivalent to the buffering action of 4 Tums tablets! Since taking 4 Tums every time one drinks a 12oz. soda is not probable, the mineral reserves are then used in place of the fluid to balance and raise the pH.

Where do you think the mineral reserves are stored?

The skeleton contains 99% of the body�s calcium.� It also contains substantial amounts of sodium, potassium, magnesium, citrate, and carbonate. This translates to 37 to 49% of our sodium stores, 0.1%-0. .2% of the body�s potassium, 53%-80% of the body�s magnesium, 59%-83% of the body�s carbonate.

When low calcium or magnesium shows up, you are in a later stage of disease. Elevated blood calcium indicates that low levels of magnesium, potassium and sodium are possible and calcium is now being used as a buffer. Literally your stores are running out.

How much soda do we drink?

In 1942 the average American drank 60, 12 oz. servings of soda per year. Today that figure number is nearly 600! If you use the same calculations I mentioned earlier of 33 liters of urine to bring the pH up to a tolerable level for every 12oz. Soda, and the average amount of soda daily for every man, women and child is 1.6 cans. It would take� 6 � Tums per day to buffer the acids from the soda.

What are we doing to ourselves?

Fifty-six percent of 8-year-olds down soft drinks daily, and a third of teenage boys drink at least three cans of soda pop per day, and we wonder why we are sick. Not only are soft drinks widely available everywhere, from fast food restaurants to video stores, they're now sold in 60 percent of all public and private middle schools and high schools nationwide, according to the National Soft Drink Association. A few schools are even giving away soft drinks to students who buy school lunches.

As soda pop becomes the beverage of choice among the nation's young -- and as soda marketers focus on brand-building among younger and younger consumers -- public health officials, school boards, parents, consumer groups and even the soft drink industry are faced with nagging questions: How healthful are these beverages, which provide a lot of calories, sugars and caffeine but no significant nutritional value? What happens if you drink a lot of them at a very young age?

This is from the Washington Post, February 27, 2001 and they didn�t even mention the acid content and the health repercussions it has.

Carbonated soft drinks account for more than 27 percent of Americans' beverage consumption
http://www.cspinet.org/sodapop/#3

In 1997, Americans spent over $54 billion to buy 14 billion gallons of soft drinks. That is the equivalent to more than 576 12-ounce servings per year or 1.6 12-ounce cans per day for every man, woman, and child.
http://www.cspinet.org/sodapop/#4

That is also more than twice the amount produced in 1974. Artificially sweetened diet sodas account for 24% of sales, up from 8.6% in 1970.

We are literally rusting ourselves to death.

Doctor Fitness Lance Dreher can be contacted for and assessment! He can be reached at 480-951-7177.

Visit pH-aT Living for Doctor Fitness' Newsletter and other health articles. For more information about Lance Dreher, visit The Fitness Institute.

Lance Dreher is a frequent contributor to East Valley Living and his articles are regularly featured in Health/Doctor Fitness Talks.