Nowadays, people are looking for additional benefits along with weight loss. And needless to say, most of the diets seem to have some health benefit or the other to keep people adhered to it. The alkaline diet is the latest in the line to join with a number of benefits like slowing down aging, controlling diabetes, curing arthritis, and cancer.
Before understanding what the diet is all about, one needs to understand the basic biology of the body. Our body has different pH levels in different parts. The stomach has an acidic pH to help in digestion while the blood is alkaline with the pH in the range of 7.3 to 7.4. The alkaline diet claims that it helps to maintain the ideal pH of the body resulting in improved health. But remember that body does a pH balance regardless of the fact that you are on a diet or not.
An alkaline diet includes mostly alkaline foods, like soy products, nuts, grains, and legumes. Acidic foods or acid promoting foods like meat, fish, poultry, white sugar, and caffeine are not encouraged. As unhealthy components, like processed foods, caffeine and alcohol are not included, and since the focus is on vegetables, fruits, and water, it follows the healthy diet plan. This can reduce the risk of kidney stones and colorectal cancer. Whether the diet helps to reduce the risk of other types of cancer is not clear yet.
Although the diet claims to bring in a balance of pH, there is no clear evidence that it changes the blood pH. It is not recommended for people with kidney disease and severe forms of diabetes. Furthermore, the diet may limit the amount of protein and calcium in the body. For that matter, one can remain healthy by including a variety of components in the diet without restricting much.