Literatus: Beauty and the funny bone

“BEAUTY,” says Dorothy Parker, “is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.” But unknown to most of us, our bones can look very ugly when our body’s internal environment becomes acidic.

What we know from most write-ups on the subject is that calcium and vitamin D are the most critical dietary constituents that affect the bone. But there is increasing evidence that the acid/base balance in the body, often modified by diet, can do as much problems.

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For example, fruits and vegetables are metabolized into alkali compounds such as bicarbonates. Protein and cereal grains produce acidic byproducts.

The standard American diet (SAD)—consisting of high intakes of red meat, sugary desserts, high fat, and refined grains—is a classic producer of acidic compounds in the body.

If we look at our home diet and the dishes available in fast foods and restaurants, we will see a diet close to SAD. That diet produces a daily excess of about 75 milli-equivalent of acid inside the body.

A study revealed a six to seven percent rise in blood acidity and a 12 to16 percent drop in plasma alkalinity occurring in people between ages 20 and 80. Most of the incidences occurred after age 50.

An acidic environment affects the bone in many ways. It stops the making of new bone cells, increases bone-cell destruction, and increases bone weakening through direct physicochemical ways.

Acid-forming diets induce dispersal of bone calcium into the urine for elimination.

Potassium, a mineral rich in fruits and vegetables, decreases the dispersion of calcium outside the body. Higher potassium intakes, in fact, have been documented to increase mineral density in the femoral neck-bone. Other studies provide evidence that bicarbonates, which are acid modifiers, consistently lower calcium dispersion from the body.

A team of six nutrition researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2009) that it was the bicarbonate, and not potassium, that had favorable effect in retaining bone calcium.

Three months after the subjects received 67.5 mmol bicarbonate capsules daily, calcium dispersion dropped by 5.38 gram.

The use of potassium (potassium bicarbonate) performed much like sodium (sodium bicarbonate). This made the researchers conclude that it was not potassium that caused the drop in calcium dispersal but bicarbonate.

These findings allow us to consider using bicarbonate supplements instead of relying solely on vitamin D and calcium for long-term bone protection.

Peter Pan-maker James Matthew Barrie has it lightly: “You see, dear, it is not true that woman was made from man’s rib; she was really made from his funny bone.”

(E-mail: zim_breakthroughs@yahoo.com; blog: http://breakthroughs.today.blogspot.com)