meat and acid

[johndela1]

I've heard vegans say that eating meat causes your body to become more acidic and to balance this out you need expend calcium. Is there any truth to this?

[B-Rad]

any food you eat your body needs to expend resources to assimilate it and no you cant become acidic unless you have some seriously damaged kidneys in which case you should be on low protein diet anyway

[CY]

The final stage of protein metabolism in humans is the conversion of purines to uric acid (I'm pretty sure of this, but I don't have time to double check right now, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Uric acid enters the blood for transport to the kidneys where it is excreted. Overconsumption of protein (and other macronutrients) can cause uric acid to rise too much, causing the body to remove it from the blood by depositing the it into tissues, however this condition is rare and usually only apparent in individuals who have kidney/excretory problems. Calcium plays very little if any role in maintaing blood pH offset by uric acid, and should not be accounted for here.

The correlation between meat/animal products and bodily calcium deficiencies, resulting in diseases such as osteoporosis, is ironically the result of animal food diets containing too much calcium. If much calcium is provided on a regular, daily basis as it is for many people, the body builds up too much calcium and must remove some of it, so it increases processes excreting calcium from the body. Following a high-calcium diet for a long period of time (years) solidifies the rate at which calcium is excreted, resulting in calcium being overly-excreted as people who follow this type of diet age, depleting them of needed reserves.

Vegetarian/vegan diets, on the other hand, are much lower in calcium than meat/dairy containing diets, so the body must withold its calcium reserves and does not excrete calcium rampantly, compared to a meat-eater who must excrete the excess dietary calcium consumed each day. Vegetarians maintain their ability to retain calcium well into old age despite their lower dietary calcium intake, and usually do not develop diseases such as osteoporosis.

[RRM]

The correlation between meat/animal products and bodily calcium deficiencies, resulting in diseases such as osteoporosis

In osteoporosis, there is no lack of calcium (in the body).
In osteoporosis, there is a lack of osteoblast capacity to produce the matrix upon which the calcium precipitates.

Following a high-calcium diet for a long period of time (years) solidifies the rate at which calcium is excreted, resulting in calcium being overly-excreted as people who follow this type of diet age, depleting them of needed reserves.

regarding calcium metabolism, maintaining the right blood calcium level is priority number 1.
The calcium reserves are in the bones.
When there is too much calcium reserve in the bones, the body indeed tries to compensate for that by excreting that redundant calcium, which is hard when you consume much calcium, as the right blood-calcium level needs to be maintained (redundant calcium has to be released into the blood prior to excretion)

In countries where osteoporosis is most prevalent, average bone mineral density is greatest, so that osteopororis should not be seen as the result of a lack of calcium, but something else.
What is evident that in people with osteoporosis, extra calcium cannot reverse the disease, as their osteoblast capacity is decreased, making it extremely hard to repair microfractures.

Vegetarians maintain their ability to retain calcium well into old age despite their lower dietary calcium intake, and usually do not develop diseases such as osteoporosis.

In all countries (most african and asian countries) where hardly/no dairy products are consumed (most peoples are allergic to cows milk, by nature), osteoporosis is extremely rare, regardless whether people eat meat, or not.

[CY]

In osteoporosis, there is a lack of osteoblast capacity to produce the matrix upon which the calcium precipitates.

I have much respect for your theory, especially because it challenges the established proposition for the disease of osteoporosis. However, seeing as the only resources I could find directly supporting this theory are yours or affiliated with waisays.com (no doubt due to that established community, and the fact that there is an incredible amount of capital interest in the treatment of osteoporosis, or any disease, for that matter), an annoying little part of me must remain skeptical.

For a start, could you please explain why there is a "fixed" number of times an osteoblast (or any cell, for that matter) can replicate? (Or, alternatively, could you point me to a resource detailing this information? If there was one on the main site, I no doubt overlooked it... )

I apologize if it is a disruption of these forums to ask this here, and, if it is, I hope you wouldn't mind replying in a private message.

Thanks

[RRM]

could you please explain why there is a "fixed" number of times an osteoblast (or any cell, for that matter) can replicate?

Thats true for all cells in our body.
Thats why we age, why organs eventually fail us, and we eventually die.
Have you heard of shortening of telomeres?

I apologize if it is a disruption of these forums to ask this here

When we are done, I will transport our osteoporosis discussion to a separate thread, in a different forum.
So, no, its not a problem at all.

[sugarbarbie]

In my opinion it doesn't matter since both the wai diet and alkaline based diets recommend eating fatty fish (like salmon) only occasionally. The balance of the rest of the raw foods and water and the benefits (omegas etc) will totally outweigh and neutralize the acidic affects of salmon shashimi. I eat shashimi once a week. That's my opinion.

[RRM]

For a good balance of nutrients (including protein) you best eat some animal food daily (fish / yolks). A lack of protein can actually cause acne...
If eating meat would cause you to need more calcium, lions and other carnivores would be severely calcium-deficient (and thus extinct).