Date 4th January 2019 , a patient walks up into my O.P.D with Gastric cancer . This relatively young gentleman in his late 40’s , well dressed up and educated as per the conversation and the level of conversation we had . Didn’t take much time to figure out that the BUG named Google had bitten him.
After having answered patiently his important set of questions such as why I got cancer? Why does stomach cancer happen? What’s the stage of cancer and what’s the treatment? I encountered with a very strange and a very pertinent question in the society, which I feel is still unanswered.
Can alkaline water make me healthy?
It took me just one second to discard the question but only to realize for a person who is suffering with cancer he will search the moon and stars to get better and that’s when he encounters such questions and myths that we frequently hear in our Gastric cancer Clinics. So, before ridiculing this question I thought of seriously going into the depth of it.
The gentleman who popularized the concept of alkaline diet, Robert O. Young was arrested way back in 2013 for PRACTICING MEDICINE WITHOUT LICENSE and he was ultimately found to have bought his PhD online. The whole concept is scientifically baseless (http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/young3.html) , as the body/blood neutralize what we eat and drink either acidic or alkaline and body pH remains around 7.4. Well, the existence of Kidney and lungs and their synchronous working helps to keep the pH in this range and that’s their function.
In one of the basic simple studies it was seen, when one eats high protein and low carbs it has a strong impact on the urine acidity but very little change on the blood pH levels hence any about of alkaline food we take it gets neutralized by the organs that have been given the job to neutralize all the alkaline.
