NationStates Jolt Archive

So, I was watching this compleatly bunnk show this morning where this guy was trying to sell a book called "herbal remedies they dont want you to know about".

Anyways, at one point he said something that struck me as kind of interesting, and i wanted to know if there is any validity to the statement.

basically he said that there is a ph level to the body, and if the ph remains basic it is almost impossible to get sick and the alkilinity of your body would prevent cancer.

I know that is out there, but i honestly dont know enough about biology or whatever to compleatly dismiss this, and i can see how it would make sence....

anyways, lol, is there a body ph? does it affect your immune system? does it make you impervious to disease?

It is impossible to make you totally immune. Thats thanks to a little thing in bugs and ilnesses called "Mutation."

There is no miracle cure. you catch a bug, you have to suffer it. Medicines only make the symptoms disapear, not the illness.

anyways, lol, is there a body ph? does it affect your immune system? does it make you impervious to disease?

yes, there is a body pH, yes it affects your immune system, but no it cannot make you impervious to disease. to make you impervious to all outside pathogens you would have to change your body pH to a level that would also kill your internal tissues.

sounds like something I'd read here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience).

yes, there is a body pH, yes it affects your immune system, but no it cannot make you impervious to disease. to make you impervious to all outside pathogens you would have to change your body pH to a level that would also kill your internal tissues.

thanks, makes sence

Yes, there is a body pH that's fairly universal throughout. However... I don't know that having a higher pH would be good for you. I'm pretty sure the body would function best at its "designed" pH level.

Most likely, the body regulates pH. So if you changed pH, it would be moved back towards the standard level. (Which may be close to 7??)

I thought the body Ph level wad not constant thoughout the body.

I thought the body Ph level wad not constant thoughout the body.
your body cavity and the general space around organs and tissues has one general pH which will be relatively constant, and most people refer to either that or blood pH as "body pH." however, you are absolutely right that different organs and tissues will have different pHs; your digestive tract, for example, is acidic. another example would be when you work out...that burning feeling you get in your muscles is due to the fact that the pH of your muscles is being lowered by production of lactic acid.

mucking with the natural pHs of any body systems, or trying to change the pH of the system as a whole, is NOT a good plan. if your digestive tract were not acidic you wouldn't be able to break down food, if your blood wasn't the correct pH it wouldn't be able to transport nutrient and oxygen to tissues, and so forth.

The normal body PH, is around 5.5, at least for teeth and bones.

So i suspect thaty would probably bve the best way

then again you would always try drinking concentrated sulfuric acid and see what happens :p
[NO: DO NOT DRINK IT; DO NOT GET YOUR BROTHER TO DRINK IT; AND DO NOT MAKE ME DRINK IT]

Of course the PH of your stomach acid is VERY accidic. if not for the layer of mucus surrounding your stomach, it would digest your body...

The normal body PH, is around 5.5, at least for teeth and bones.

So i suspect thaty would probably bve the best way

then again you would always try drinking concentrated sulfuric acid and see what happens :p
[NO: DO NOT DRINK IT; DO NOT GET YOUR BROTHER TO DRINK IT; AND DO NOT MAKE ME DRINK IT]

I would go for the special diet of drinking deuterium-water only for you. Just watch your dna fall apart when drinking it for a while ...

for the most part, your body pH is held at a constant 7.4 (a tad more alkaline than neutral). however, different parts of the body have different pH's. for example, inside your stomach is a very acidic pH. if gastric pH were allowed to become more alkaline, you would probably get sick easier because it is the unhospitable stomach acid that provides the first line of defense against food-borne pathogens. other normally acidic environments in your body includes the skin and the vagina. again, the acidity is a barrier to microbial growth.

body pH is buffered, which means it is protected, to a certain extent, against change in either direction. pH change is bad for homeostatis! your body likes homeostasis to keep on operating properly. if you vomit to much, for example, you'll lose much of your stomach acid and become alkalotic, which can be compensated for by your kidneys and lungs to a certain point, beyond which you'll get pretty sick. if you have diarrhea that causes you to lose a lot of bicarbonate, you can become acidotic, which again can be compensated by the kidneys and lungs to a certain point, beyond which you'll get sick.

pus is acidic. i don't remember if that is a result of cell death, or an intentional mechanism of the immune system to kill germs. probably both.

i don't think you can generalize whether alkaline or acid pH is good or bad for the immune system. the immune system consists of widely differing cell types, tissues, organs, soluble factors. what might be good for one thing may be bad for another.

by the way, the atkins diet works by making you ketoacidotic. it may be effective for losing weight, but ketoacidosis is not a healthy state to be in by any stretch of the imagination.

yes, there is a body pH, yes it affects your immune system, but no it cannot make you impervious to disease. to make you impervious to all outside pathogens you would have to change your body pH to a level that would also kill your internal tissues.
I think what they are getting at is by establishing a body PH that makes an unfriendly enviroment for parasites and other infections. Does it work? Try it. I don't think there is any universal system for health that works for everyone. There are however many preventative techniques that can have varying degrees of effect.

for the most part, your body pH is held at a constant 7.4 (a tad more alkaline than neutral). however, different parts of the body have different pH's. for example, inside your stomach is a very acidic pH. if gastric pH were allowed to become more alkaline, you would probably get sick easier because it is the unhospitable stomach acid that provides the first line of defense against food-borne pathogens. other normally acidic environments in your body includes the skin and the vagina. again, the acidity is a barrier to microbial growth.

body pH is buffered, which means it is protected, to a certain extent, against change in either direction. pH change is bad for homeostatis! your body likes homeostasis to keep on operating properly. if you vomit to much, for example, you'll lose much of your stomach acid and become alkalotic, which can be compensated for by your kidneys and lungs to a certain point, beyond which you'll get pretty sick. if you have diarrhea that causes you to lose a lot of bicarbonate, you can become acidotic, which again can be compensated by the kidneys and lungs to a certain point, beyond which you'll get sick.

pus is acidic. i don't remember if that is a result of cell death, or an intentional mechanism of the immune system to kill germs. probably both.

i don't think you can generalize whether alkaline or acid pH is good or bad for the immune system. the immune system consists of widely differing cell types, tissues, organs, soluble factors. what might be good for one thing may be bad for another.

by the way, the atkins diet works by making you ketoacidotic. it may be effective for losing weight, but ketoacidosis is not a healthy state to be in by any stretch of the imagination.

lol, i feel dumb for asking now

wow, i hope people dont buy that book :/

I think what they are getting at is by establishing a body PH that makes an unfriendly enviroment for parasites and other infections. Does it work? Try it. I don't think there is any universal system for health that works for everyone. There are however many preventative techniques that can have varying degrees of effect.

The problem lies here. Your organs each have their own pH at which they are most efficient. Now any parasite or germ that lives in a certain organ again will be most efficient in this pH. changing the pH will damage both your organ and the parasite. luckely, our body makes use of chemical buffers to make sure the pH wont change that much, which will make it pretty hard for you to efficiently change the pH of your organs (if you want to try this very unhealthy method).

The immune system functions at a wide variety of pHs. There are acid loving cells, alakline loving cells, and cells that don't give a flip. Further--and more importantly--there is only a tiny tiny range of pHs in which the body can function. The typical body pH is 7.4 and I want to say that if you got more than 0.2 points away from that, you start to feel it and if you go much further you will be unconscious and then dead.

In fact, your body uses an obscenely large amount of its energy regulating its pH. Ever here of hyperventilation? That's when your are acidotic and trying to flow off the excess acid in the form of CO2. And there there are your kidneys which are VERY effective at changing the acid-base balance. Urine pH can range from something like 3 to around 9, depending on the needs of the body.

Mind you, I may not have my numbers perfectly right, but I do have the principles down.

So why then would this man be claiming that making your body more alkaline makes you impervious to disease?

is it just marketing?

edit
im sorry, allow me to elaborate

science reletivly recently discovered organisms that can survive in temperatures that we thought it was impossible for life to exist in. Could he be on to something or is this compleatly off the wall?

Follow the link I gave on my first post to possibly provide illumination (frex (http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1310197,00.html)).

Actually, my favorite is this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1294819,00.html

there are aliens in my house downstairs as we speak, they are strange and i do not like them, they pet my dog nicely, here in koln noone will listen to my alien storys, they do not like me here, but they are real things, one is coming up the stairs right away now, i will try to kill him and show it to the world?


is this a good idea? :confused:

Follow the link I gave on my first post to possibly provide illumination (frex (http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1310197,00.html)).

Actually, my favorite is this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1294819,00.html

haha

thats rich

So why then would this man be claiming that making your body more alkaline makes you impervious to disease?

is it just marketing?

edit
im sorry, allow me to elaborate

science reletivly recently discovered organisms that can survive in temperatures that we thought it was impossible for life to exist in. Could he be on to something or is this compleatly off the wall?
They have special proteins that do not denature at high temperatures. Human tissues can only survive at a certain pH. Every person that dies from illness actually dies from shock, as your organs fail your blood becomes more acidic and you die.

So why then would this man be claiming that making your body more alkaline makes you impervious to disease?

is it just marketing?

edit
im sorry, allow me to elaborate

science reletivly recently discovered organisms that can survive in temperatures that we thought it was impossible for life to exist in. Could he be on to something or is this compleatly off the wall?

given that the guy provides no context to his claim... i'm not sure what to say, except that he's obviously obfuscating something. that statement makes no sense at all... make what part of your body alkaline? impervious to which diseases?

as to the second part of your question about organisms and extreme conditions: life is truly miraculous. you can find life in just about any niche on the planet, from superheated hydrothermal deep sea vents to hypertonic salt marshes to antarctic permafrost to caves dripping with noxious acid and everything in between. each life form is well adapted to its own niche. if you take the thermophilic bacteria Thermus aquaticus and place it in room temperature, it would not survive. if you take yourself, Homo sapiens, and venture into a geothermal geyser in Yellowstone where T aquaticus calls home, you would not last very long either. just because one form of life has adapted to a certain condition does not mean that it is suitable for another.

let's try this thought experiment. fever is a physiologic response by which the host raises its body temperature in order to render it unhospitable to the pathogen, thereby clearing the infection. so by the logic of this author you are quoting, sustaining a constant fever is a great way to keep from getting sick. you might have fewer infections, but there are other issues you would have to deal with. will you have fewer diseases from a more alkaline pH? what is the trade-off?

So why then would this man be claiming that making your body more alkaline makes you impervious to disease?

is it just marketing?

edit
im sorry, allow me to elaborate

science reletivly recently discovered organisms that can survive in temperatures that we thought it was impossible for life to exist in. Could he be on to something or is this compleatly off the wall?

Why make the claim? Becase he can make money. "herbals" and other "dietary supplements" are not treated as drugs by the FDA and therefore their statements and use are not regulated.

And yes, there are organisms that can survive in extremely acidic or basic encvironments, in extremely hot and cold or salty environments. They are called extremophiles. It seems that evolution has provided a way for an organism to survive almost anywhere. That however doesn't mean that humans can survive there (of course). There is an even a theory that there might be organisms that are Si based instead of Carbon based in certain parts of the ocean where silicon compounds would be more stable.

Just a hypothesis on that last one.

The theory behind most of that is sound.
The problem is looking from the point of veiw of Western medicine which deal almost exclusivly with acute care.
What it sounds like this guy peddling is more in line with something like Chinese medicine which deals with the body as a whole and focuses on promoting health before illness begins--maintaining balance, as opposed to fighting illness.
The problem is in the West we are taught to never question the methods of the All Knowing Doctor, well Western Medicine ideas are fairly new-where as the homiopathics have been around for about ten thousand years.
The guy isnt telling he has a cure, or you can be totally safe(if he is he is a liar) but treating the entire body, is far more intelligent when working preventativly then the Western practice of waiting till a person is sick and then bombarding them with acute treatments.IMHO.

The theory behind most of that is sound.
The problem is looking from the point of veiw of Western medicine which deal almost exclusivly with acute care.
What it sounds like this guy peddling is more in line with something like Chinese medicine which deals with the body as a whole and focuses on promoting health before illness begins--maintaining balance, as opposed to fighting illness.
The problem is in the West we are taught to never question the methods of the All Knowing Doctor, well Western Medicine ideas are fairly new-where as the homiopathics have been around for about ten thousand years.
The guy isnt telling he has a cure, or you can be totally safe(if he is he is a liar) but treating the entire body, is far more intelligent when working preventativly then the Western practice of waiting till a person is sick and then bombarding them with acute treatments.IMHO.

right. never question the methods of the shaman either.

i have nothing against chinese medicine, in fact i feel that chinese herbalists and acupuncturists can do a great deal of good for certain patients and conditions.

just because homeopaths have been around for 10k years doesn't mean a thing... quacks have been around for at least that long too. even chinese medicine, which i highly respect and even use sometimes, has used mercury compounds in certain preparations until recently. now nobody in their right minds would ingest any mercury today, as it is neurotoxic and teratogenic. scientific inquiry has made chinese medicine safer, so don't be quick to judge western docs.

preventative medicine is important. that's why there are vaccines (well not enough flu vaccines this season). that's why you should exercise every day. that's why you should stop eating big macs, whoppers, and krispy kremes. that's why you should quit smoking.

if you want a herbs to bring you a better life, good luck. the chinese and other cultures have spent millenia searching for the elixir of life, to no avail. your life will improve much more if you just eat right, exercise, and spend more time outdoors in nature. herbs have negligible impact on your health compared to those lifestyle adjustments that western society so desperately needs.

a personal anecdote to illustrate the point: when i worked at burger king, there was this lady who came in and ordered a bacon double cheeseburger and supersized her meal with the absurdly large fries and beverage. when asked what she wanted to drink, she ordered diet coke. moral of the story? neither diet coke nor herbs will change anything if you continue to abuse your body with a shitty lifestyle. when you become a marathon running, brown rice eating, nature loving, tobacco hating, stair climbing anomaly of modern society, then, and only then, might herbs tone/balance your body.

right. never question the methods of the shaman either.

i have nothing against chinese medicine, in fact i feel that chinese herbalists and acupuncturists can do a great deal of good for certain patients and conditions.

just because homeopaths have been around for 10k years doesn't mean a thing... quacks have been around for at least that long too. even chinese medicine, which i highly respect and even use sometimes, has used mercury compounds in certain preparations until recently. now nobody in their right minds would ingest any mercury today, as it is neurotoxic and teratogenic. scientific inquiry has made chinese medicine safer, so don't be quick to judge western docs.

preventative medicine is important. that's why there are vaccines (well not enough flu vaccines this season). that's why you should exercise every day. that's why you should stop eating big macs, whoppers, and krispy kremes. that's why you should quit smoking.

if you want a herbs to bring you a better life, good luck. the chinese and other cultures have spent millenia searching for the elixir of life, to no avail. your life will improve much more if you just eat right, exercise, and spend more time outdoors in nature. herbs have negligible impact on your health compared to those lifestyle adjustments that western society so desperately needs.

a personal anecdote to illustrate the point: when i worked at burger king, there was this lady who came in and ordered a bacon double cheeseburger and supersized her meal with the absurdly large fries and beverage. when asked what she wanted to drink, she ordered diet coke. moral of the story? neither diet coke nor herbs will change anything if you continue to abuse your body with a shitty lifestyle. when you become a marathon running, brown rice eating, nature loving, tobacco hating, stair climbing anomaly of modern society, then, and only then, might herbs tone/balance your body.

Herbs can function just as well, and in a few cases better, than ordinary medicine, and can turn around the condition of people who are even in very poor health. My mother came down with ulcerative colitis and the doctor tried to put her on steroids and book her for a colostomy. She went to an herbalist instead. Most doctors will tell you that if you get ulcerative colitis you'll have it for life, so now they tell her that she never had ulcerative colitis because if she had it she'd still have it.

Herbs have functioned in a health capacity in Europe just as long as in the East. Prime rib in England is served with horseradish sauce, which is made with herbs that aid in the digestion of fat. Traditional italian sausage (the modern version of which gives many people heartburn) is made with fennel seeds, which relieve heartburn.

The problem is herbs as medicine in the west tend to be consumed according to fad rather than tradition or emperical evidence. People know chamomile is soothing and so someone might take it to relieve an ulcer only to switch over to prescription medicine when "herbs" don't work. If he'd tried slippery elm instead he could not only avoid the side effects of their drugs but could go back to eating Mexican food. I've given slippery elm to several ulcer sufferers, some so bad off that they literally puke blood, and they ALL recover by the second day.

my discussion was not intended to be a slam on herbs at all. the phytochemicals found in herbs are biologically active compounds. pharmaceutical companies invest heavily in the ethnobotany field to discover new drug leads. i myself put ginseng rootlets in my chicken soup for the flavor and a small boost of energy. (by the way, dong quai and lycium berries give a delicious, warming enhancement to duck broth... great winter food). clearly, herbs can do much good, if you are well-familiarized with their effects. but oftentimes, reversing the negative aspects of one's lifestyle will have a bigger impact on health than the positive therapeutic effect herbs can bring.

herbs are dangerous when used recklessly. prescribing yourself poorly characterized herbs based on the marketer's claims is totally irresponsible. even for well-known herbs like ma huang, it may be well suited to treat asthma or relieve congestion, but only when its dosage, preparation, and usage guidelines are set by a well-trained, legitimate, reputable, and experienced doctor of traditional chinese medicine.

domici, i am glad your mother is doing better because of herbs. for terra-domina, a typical healthy person (i'm assuming), using herbals as a tonic probably won't do much, especially when the marketer's claims are as dubious as described earlier in the thread. i doubt even domici understands what the guy meant by increasing alkalinity leading to improved immunity.