Amadeus wrote:
>>Protein increases the acidity of what?
>Of the body as a whole in summary after digestion.

I agree that this is what the naturopathic literature seems to imply, but I
question this vague claim.

>I've read something different (but similar).
>What increases acidity is meat, dairy, nuts, grains.
>Virtually the only acidity lowering food items were
>fruit (but ripe)
>and vegetables with few exceptions.
>Even sour lemon reduces in the end-effect the acidity load.

I think that all of these examples are refering to stomach or intestinal pH
(citrus fruits leave an alkaline ash after they are digested).

>I didn't read anything that decomposition of purines or fat could
>reduce the blood acidity- do you have references on this?

Read the discussion section of George Watson's paper "Differences in
Intermediary Metabolism in Mental Illness" (Psychological Reports, 1965? --
sorry, I don't have an exact reference handy); it is reprinted in his book
"Nutrition and Your Mind" (1972).  It explains how the metabolism of carbs,
fats, and proteins can influence our pH; the paper doesn't mention purines,
even though he emphasizes their importance in his book.  Rudolf Wiley's
book, "BioBalance" (1989), describes many case studies of people whose
venous blood plasma pH normalized after they changed their diet, but doesn't
explain the mechanism (Watson and Wiley's books were both written for the
general public).  Wiley has also published a couple of papers which may give
the information you want (I'm not sure since I haven't read them yet; I
should be able to order one of them soon); see my previous post ("Re: The
Steak Lover's Diet") for the references.

A friend of mine sent a great deal of blood to the labs before he was
satisfied that the theory was correct.  My doctor used the "BioBalance"
method to successfully treat some of his patients, until the government
stopped paying for venous blood pH tests; he didn't understand *why* the
method worked, because he didn't know the underlying theory, and had been
brainwashed by the "meat causes acidity, fruits and vegetables cause
alkalinity" myth.  If he *had* known the explanation, he might have realized
that the blood tests were unnecessary.

I searched PubMed for relevant abstracts, but, not surprisingly, found
nothing.  You'll be hard pressed to find any information about the effect of
purines, fat, and carbs on blood plasma pH, beyond what I've provided above,
because few people have bothered to study the problem.  But that also means
you'll have trouble finding studies that directly contradict my claim.

>I may again quote my only net-available reference here:
>..."
>Additionally, bone mass is also dependent upon the relative
>acid/alkaline dietary load (2,3).   Acid generated by the diet is
>excreted in the urine and can cause calciuresis.   Meat and fish have a
>high potential renal acid load (PRAL) whereas fruits and vegetables have
>a negative PRAL, meaning they reduce acid excretion.   The human kidney
>                 ===================================
>cannot excrete urine with a pH lower than 5; consequently  the acids


This reference is clearly discussing urinary pH, not blood plasma pH.  I'm
not saying that extremely acidic urine isn't a problem, but acidic urine
does not automatically imply acidic blood, even though a high serum level of
urea should have some effect.  Wiley emphasized the importance of measuring
venous blood plasma pH instead of arterial blood plasma pH; although I would
expect the two to be correlated, it is the first one when proved to be most
accurate for measuring the kind of metabolic imbalance in which Watson and
Wiley were interested.  I'm not sure whether this point is relevant to our
discussion, but I thought that I should mention it in case it turns out that
the serum level of urea affects one type of blood pH more than another.
Unfortunately, I have no idea whether this is true.

Cheers,
-- Aaron Wieland