Your diet is probably dangerously acidic but there’s a simple solution (New Scientist)
Nutrition scientists have unlocked an entirely new way of thinking about why certain foods are good for you and others are harmful. Here’s what to eat to function at your best
I am standing in the bathroom with a strip of litmus paper in my hand. I am going to pee on it and hope that it doesn’t turn red, which would indicate acid. This isn’t for a bet – it is a (ahem) litmus test of whether my diet is slowly killing me. Acidic urine is a crude sign that something called my dietary acid load is too high. If it is, I am opening myself up to a range of ills. Luckily, there is a simple cure: a change of diet. So, if I do see red, I am going to eat some spinach and try again.
This might sound like medical woo-woo, and there are worrying echoes of a discredited fad called the alkaline diet. But nutrition scientists increasingly think that by ignoring dietary acid load we are missing a trick when it comes to healthy eating. “The higher the dietary acid load, the higher the risk of developing chronic diseases,” says Hana Kahleova at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a not-for-profit research centre in Washington DC. These include kidney disease, liver disease, cancer, obesity, hypertension and even anxiety and depression.
Shockingly, almost all of us are getting this wrong – especially if we eat a regular Western diet. But the good news is that, unlike the damage caused by consuming too much salt or more calories than we need, this can be quite easily reversed, provided you know which foods and drinks make your body too acidic. What’s more, the new science of dietary acid load is throwing fresh light on why certain diets promote chronic diseases.
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More perils of a Western diet
At this point, alarm bells may be ringing. Western-style diets are notoriously rich in animal products, salt, refined grains and ultra-processed foods, and low in fruit and vegetables – the perfect recipe for low-grade metabolic acidosis. Indeed, researchers believe that among people consuming the typical Western diet, it is very common, if not ubiquitous. “We have a chronic exposure to a high dietary acid load, so that’s something that we all have,” says Ilias Attaye at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
How acid corrodes you
The link between a high DAL and kidney disease is pretty much nailed down. Now, there is a growing suspicion among nutrition scientists that the acid inside our bodies eats deeper. Low-grade metabolic acidosis has been tentatively linked to multiple chronic conditions, including diabetes, obesity, liver disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, anxiety and depression. As yet, these are just associations from small-scale studies. Bigger ones are needed before DAL can be built into dietary guidelines, says Attaye. But they are coming. For example, he has just received funding for a clinical trial to look at how low and high-acid diets affect the metabolic health of people with diabetes.
Read the full article: Your diet is probably dangerously acidic but there’s a simple solution (New Scientist)
