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hi my name is dr. Susan brown I direct the Center for better bones and today I want to talk to you about a very interesting question that question is how does an alkaline diet benefit bone well actually when we look at it we see there are several ways of an alkaline diet benefit bones the first way is that an alkaline diet is high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds from plants these compounds protect bone the second way is that an alkaline diet is high in vegetables fruits nuts and seeds which deliver abundant vitamins minerals essential fats amino acids all of which are essential for healthy bones the most important weight in alkaline diet benefits bomb however relates to the role that bone plays in maintaining systemic pH balance from a biochemical point of view the body must maintain a narrow range of pH balance blood and cell fluids must be slightly alkaline if not threaten is survival is threatened as you might recall from chemistry class the pH scale goes from 0 to 14 with 7 is neutral
in order for our bodies continued physical survival arterial blood pH must be maintained in a very narrow range it must be kept at just seven point four plus or minus 0.5 pH units that's a very very narrow range or else we die because the body can only tolerate very small changes in pH there are rescue mechanisms the body uses to buffer excess acids one of the major rescue mechanisms for reducing metabolics acids and maintaining ph homeostasis involves our skeleton as it turns out our skeleton is a gigantic reserve of alkaline mineral compounds that can be swiftly called upon when the blood takes even the slightest acidic tilt while this is an excellent emergency rescue mechanism if phone alkaline mineral reserves are chronically drawn upon bone is weakened even if we only have a slight excess in acidity over time the withdrawal of bone mineral compounds needed to buffer this slight acidity would cause significant bone loss so you might be asking well just how sensitive is bone to pH changes bone is very sensitive to even small changes in pH for example even a one-tenth point of a drop in pH is enough to greatly stimulate bone breakdown significant significantly inhibit bone buildup and induce a manifold mineral loss from bone when our body experiences even a slightly acidic tilt the emergency siren goes off the body goes into action to gather alkaline mineral compound reserves to buffer the threatening acids
so next you might be saying we'll just how much bone loss could be caused by excess metabolic acids today the standard American diet is net acid forming and over a lifetime many in fact many researchers suggest that over a lifetime this acid effect can lead to substantial bone loss as a whole our diets are high in protein refined grains sugars caffeine alcohol and fats while low in mineral dense whole vegetables fruits nuts and seeds specifically researchers suggest that over decades the standard American diet can cause enough urine mineral loss to deplete roughly one-half of the average female skeletal calcium and one-third of the average males now this to me is very interesting and you may say wow that seems like way too much but this calculation of long-term mineral loss coincides with the research findings that between the ages of 21 and 80 to 89 the average woman in the US will lose about forty percent of her spinal bone mass and the average man will lose thirty percent and this is of course if a person lives the average way and does not follow an alkaline diet a mineral rich alkaline diet protects bones the alkaline diet is an eating program high in alkalizing mineral compounds which spontaneously buffer diet induced metabolic acids the buffering of assets interns prevents this drain of bone mineral compounds the positive effect of an alkaline diet has been shown in clinical trials and numerous population studies
