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Acid/Alkaline Diet?

From Respectful Insolence: 

"The bottom line is that, in the absence of renal and lung disease, the homeostatic mechanisms controlling the pH of your blood are incredibly robust and tightly regulated. (One reason dialysis patients become acidotic is because their kidneys can no longer regulate bicarbonate concentration in the blood.) It's very hard to alter your blood pH by very much for very long, although you can change it briefly (for example, hyperventilation will cause a transient and sometimes quite impressive alkalosis). Indeed, when these homeostatic mechanisms fail, the resulting acidosis or alkalosis is caused by this failure. Trying to reverse an acid-base disturbance is not usually possible without reversing the underlying cause. It won't matter how much alkali you administer; without reversing the underlying cause, the acidosis will return as soon as you stop giving it. In fact, if a patient receives an intravenous bicarbonate infusion to alkalinize the urine, blood pH will change little, unless you infuse a dangerously high amount. The kidney excretes the extra bicarbonate (the intended effect), and hypoventilation shifts the balance from bicarbonate to carbonic acid. Funny that alties, who so decry "conventional medicine" for treating the symptoms, rather than the "underlying causes" of disease would fall prey to such the same mistake they accuse us conventional doctors of. (No it isn't.) Oh, there are a few indications for alkalinization of the urine, like the treatment of certain kinds of kidney stones, but these indications are pretty few."

Lay opinion: While tumors can develop acidic pH, we have not yet found any clinical , or convincing preclinical, data supporting claims that diet can influence the pH balance in the microenvironment of tumors, or if it could that doing so would have a clinical effect on the disease. 

Frequently, we read in the literature that problems in pH balance must be addressed by identifying and treating the underlying cause, and not by trying to adjust the numbers. 

See for example: Approach to acid-base problems in the critically ill and injured

Resources:

TOPIC SEARCH: Acidity and tumor growth: PubMed