The benefits people colloquially explain as due to an "alkaline" diet are mostly related to consumption of potassium. The thing is that "alkaline" does not accu

The benefits people colloquially explain as due to an "alkaline" diet are mostly related to consumption of potassium. The thing is that "alkaline" does not accurately describe what is going on with these diets, because eating food is not at all like mixing chemicals in a jar. Furthermore, as any chemist knows, the K+ ion is actually an acid, but because it acts as a counterion for stronger bases, higher potassium leads to higher blood pH. The idea is basically folk wisdom which is transmitting the findings of studies like this one: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/87/5/2008/2846608 https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/87/5/2008/2846608 Because consumption of K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ decreases calcium excretion, whereas consumption of Na+ and sulfur increases it, and because calcium is more soluble in acidic solutions and less soluble in alkaline solutions, there was a tendency to refer to the former as "alkaline" and the latter as "acidic". This is infuriating to people who know enough chemistry to know that Mg2+ is in fact much more acidic than Na+. I am an amateur, but I've put a decent amount of time towards making sense of this, and it appears to me that it's mostly potassium, and to a lesser extent calcium and magnesium, that explains what is really going on here.