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Does An Alkaline Diet Help You Lose Weight? A Review Of The Evidence |
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Probably the first scientific studies on digestion were done by
Ivan Pavlov who became famous for his 'salivating dogs'. Pavlov
showed that the digestive enzymes released and the amount of
acid secreted depends on the type of food.
His experiments with rats showed that starches are digested in
about two hours, proteins are digested in about four hours but a
protein-starch mixture could still be digesting 13 hours later.
With dogs, again the protein-starch mixture took over twice as
long compared to the same food consumed separately.
Pavlov also showed that food taken on top (i.e. before digestion
has completed) can lead to fermentation. This happens when you
eat fruit after a meal; many people say that it gives them gas.
What could account for Pavlov's results?
The enzymes essential for digestion only function at specific pH
levels; proteins and carbohydrate enzymes require opposite pH
levels. If you mix them together in the same bag, you won't be
able to digest either food properly.
"Most fruits go straight through the stomach into the duodenum
for digestion, which means if you put fresh fruit on top of a
big meal, it has to sit and wait in the top of the stomach until
the other food is digested, during which delay bacteria attack
the fruit and ferment it, gobbling up all the nutrients and
leaving you with gas and metabolic wastes." Daneil Reid,
Trophology: The Science of Food Combining, "The Tao of Health".
In 1908 Dr Howard Hay after practicing medicine for 16 years
developed High Blood Pressure, Brights Disease and a dilated
heart. As there was no treatment available, Dr Hay decided to
find a cure for his own symptoms. He looked at his food intake
and the chemical process of digestion, the enzymes that are
essential for this process and whether the food has an overall
acidifying or alkalizing effect on the body.
To the amazement of his colleagues, he had a complete remission
of his symptoms in 3 months of changing his diet. He also
reduced his weight by 20kg's. In 1911 he introduced his Food
Combining guidelines and gave lectures till his death about the
need to combine foods properly and reducing acidifying foods
from the diet.
If you think there's nothing to acid-alkaline food combining,
try this: one day for lunch eat a steak with chips, and monitor
how you feel after an hour or so. Next day eat the same steak,
but with a large vegetable salad. Which day did you feel more
tired, drowsy?
Try feeding your dog meat and biscuits for a while, see how |
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he
feels!
Try an acidifying McDonald's diet for a month.
If you're still alive, try an alkaline diet of alkaline water,
fruits, vegetables, juices and super greens for a month. You're
guaranteed to lose weight from this diet - it's over 95% water!
Some doctors maintain that all food is acid in the stomach and
becomes alkaline in the intestines from the pancreas secretions.
The blood pH range is so narrow that any measurable change would
cause death. Even a bottle of ant-acids won't affect the acidity
of the stomach for long.
These scientific facts don't mean that an alkaline diet is
useless or that the body can magically process food in any old
combination!
Remember Pavlov's results? Why are so many people that eat at
McDonald's fat and why did Spurlock nearly die? The fat content
is not that high - a Big Mac apparently is 100% grilled beef,
the chips are fried in vegetable oil and there's no fat in the
cola! Could it be the acid, the high glycemic load and the bad
combinations?
Such foods play havoc on our blood sugar and pH levels. As
Daniel Reid explains the sugary 'soft drink' is an 'acid bomb':
"A 350 ml serving of Coke, Pepsi or similar drink delivers a
sugar fix equivalent to about 9 teaspoons of sugar straight into
the blood stream. This instantly acidifies the bloodstream to
the extreme point that without an immediate emergency response
from the body, it would kill you in a mater of minutes...you'd
have to drink 32 glasses of alkaline water to neutralize the
blood pH...to prevent death by acidosis, the body reacts swiftly
by drawing huge amounts of organic calcium from the bones and
teeth and pouring it into the bloodstream to neutralize the
excess acid and quickly restore alkaline balance. Calcium is the
body's most potent alkalizing agent"
Are there any clinical studies to settle this issue?
A study called "Cola beverage consumption induces bone
mineralization reduction in ovariectomized rats" (the rats were
fed cola - acid, pH 2.5 - and the effects on bone density
measured) suggests that "heavy intake of cola soft drinks has
the potential of reducing femoral mineral density".
Dr L. Frassetto's team at the University of California
discovered that as we age, starting around age 45, we lose the
alkaline buffer bicarbonates in our blood:
"Our group has shown that contemporary net acid-producing diets
do indeed characteristically produce a low-grade systemic
metabolic acidosis in otherwise healthy adult subjects, and that
the degree of |
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Untitled Document
This week, December 1 marks World AIDS Day. And oh yes I know the Obama-mania continues with palpable frenzy, and why should the world not celebrate! These are the signs of the times indeed folks, but hey politics is not my area of expertise, so I shall stick to nutrition, diet and health. But the excitement is so visible, transcends borders and the seven seas, therefore no one can ignore it. ...
'Eat, Shrink & Be Merry" - it's the title of a fun cookbook by two sisters, Janet and Greta Podleski that I found on the 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Web site (3fatchicks.com).
Mice that were fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months developed a preliminary stage of the morbid irregularities that form in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
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