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Have you ever measured the pH of your blood, both before and after eating certain foods or performing certain exercises? Animal blood is a buffer system, with

Have you ever measured the pH of your blood, both before and after eating certain foods or performing certain exercises? Animal blood is a buffer system, with normal pH of 7.35 to 7.45 . It takes a lot to push it out of balance. You have the buffer [H+](aq) + [HCO3-](aq) <-> H2CO3(aq) <-> CO2(g) + H2O(l). Lungs remove excess CO2(g), and kidneys remove excess [HCO3-](aq). You also have the buffer [H+](aq) + [H2PO4-](aq) <-> H3PO4(aq), and [H+](aq) + hemoglobin(aq) <-> O2(aq) + hemoglobin(aq). As muscles produce acid, hemoglobin binds the proton and releases oxygen. A healthy body does not need to do anything at all to consciously regulate its pH; actions that can significantly change blood pH can cause alkalosis or acidosis, which are indicative of serious metabolic problems. If you haven't had a blood test that showed blood pH out of the range 7.35 to 7.45 , you never need to worry about your blood pH or blood gases, ever--unless you're a SCUBA diver or astronaut, or someone else that routinely breathes a different mix of gases from normal atmosphere. https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/coral2.html https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/coral... https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-news-quackery/alkaline-water-nonsense https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-news... http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
macawfish 8y ago
Try it yourself if you don't believe me... I dare you! Lay down in a comfortable place. Begin breathing deeply and comfortably but quickly, leaving no pauses at the top or bottom of your breaths. Keep a steady rhythm of 1-2 breaths/second. Keep doing this for up to 5 minutes... or as long as you can stand to. Well within 2 minutes your lips and hand muscles will cramp up. That's tetany, and it's a very clear sign of respiratory alkalosis. No pH meter necessary! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis You are free to keep going if you can handle the intense and unusual sensations. It will get more intense. Take it as far as you'd like. At some point you may begin to experience some psychological discomfort, so I'd err on the side of caution if you are easily spooked by unfamiliar states of mind. I've experienced quite severe tetany from controlled and deliberate hyperventilation ("bioenergetic breathing"/"round breathing"/"breath of fire"). When I did this exercise, I was involuntarily convulsing as my lips and hands became uncontrollably tensed and misshapen. It's surprisingly easy to do and is an extremely powerful experience. After doing this exercise I felt a profound sense of well-being and relaxation as I laid and stretched in the sun. --- Let me state more clearly my point: eating or drinking a certain way in order to moderate your blood pH is useless if you're not paying attention to your breathing habits. Breathing is an actual way to quickly alter your blood pH. By the way, on the flip side, some people might experience blood acidosis because of hypoventilation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/hypoventilation https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/... > Hypoventilation in the absence of alkalosis to inhibit ventilatory drive is a primary respiratory problem. This can result from CNS depression caused by trauma or by some drugs that inhibit respiratory drive such as barbiturates. Hypoventilation increases PCO2 and leads to acidosis. There can be no respiratory compensation for a primary respiratory problem. You don't need to be an astronaut or scuba diver to have CNS depression/trauma. I can attest to that personally.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  You are describing woo. Produce objective repeatable measurements, or it didn't happen. The burden is upon the claimant to make a falsifiable assertion and then support it with evidence. Please explain why anyone should deliberately choose to induce alkalosis by breathing exercises. What purpose does that serve? Have the claims ever been examined objectively? Both alkalosis and acidosis are potentially dangerous conditions, and should not be toyed with because of woo.
  - macawfish 8y ago
    Okay hold on... Did you take the time to actually read any of the links I posted? Or any of what I wrote? Did you read the quote I shared from the last link? It gave a compelling reason for doing alkalizing breath exercises... Chronically or acutely disrupted respiration from CNS depression related to trauma or anything. This is quite a common kind of situation and the article is saying "people can have acidosis because they aren't breathing well." In that case, according to science and folks traditions alike it's necessary for them to retrain their habits of breath to be more oxygenizing. And there's a spectrum here. You can do alkalizing breath exercises without inducing tetany. I mentioned the tetany exercise because you were asking me to hook up a pH meter to my bloodstream to "objectively prove" that voluntarily changing respiration can lead to significant pH shifts in the blood. I've shared links to non-controversial scientific articles and book exerpts, including peer reviewed ones, corroborating this. Involuntary, chronic shallow breathing or hyperventilation are respectively dangerous because they can cause acidosis or alkalosis that an individual is unable to recover from without some intervention. Just because there also happen to be numerous folk traditions around this, notably pranayama, doesn't nullify the objective, scientific basis for what I'm talking about! If you'd genuinely like to understand my perspective from a scientific point of view, check out this peer reviewer article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17432979.2011.574505 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17432979.2011.57...
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      That article is on psychotherapy. I am not disputing that breathing exercises can make one feel better. I am disputing that the sense of wellness is causally linked to any changes in blood pH. It is perfectly acceptable to claim that breathing exercises are useful for mental health. You are making additional claims that are not supported, regarding health benefits for people that do not have a diagnosis that requires therapy. The folk remedies do not automatically invalidate the claims. They do surround the relevant questions with a cloud of woo, which makes objective study more difficult. This is especially relevant when scammers adopt pseudoscientific terminology that mimics genuine science for the purpose of selling their products and services. It becomes difficult to sort the fact from the fiction, because the fictions are explicitly designed to look like related facts.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

macawfish 8y ago

Try it yourself if you don't believe me... I dare you! Lay down in a comfortable place. Begin breathing deeply and comfortably but quickly, leaving no pauses at the top or bottom of your breaths. Keep a steady rhythm of 1-2 breaths/second. Keep doing this for up to 5 minutes... or as long as you can stand to. Well within 2 minutes your lips and hand muscles will cramp up. That's tetany, and it's a very clear sign of respiratory alkalosis. No pH meter necessary! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis You are free to keep going if you can handle the intense and unusual sensations. It will get more intense. Take it as far as you'd like. At some point you may begin to experience some psychological discomfort, so I'd err on the side of caution if you are easily spooked by unfamiliar states of mind. I've experienced quite severe tetany from controlled and deliberate hyperventilation ("bioenergetic breathing"/"round breathing"/"breath of fire"). When I did this exercise, I was involuntarily convulsing as my lips and hands became uncontrollably tensed and misshapen. It's surprisingly easy to do and is an extremely powerful experience. After doing this exercise I felt a profound sense of well-being and relaxation as I laid and stretched in the sun. --- Let me state more clearly my point: eating or drinking a certain way in order to moderate your blood pH is useless if you're not paying attention to your breathing habits. Breathing is an actual way to quickly alter your blood pH. By the way, on the flip side, some people might experience blood acidosis because of hypoventilation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/hypoventilation https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/... > Hypoventilation in the absence of alkalosis to inhibit ventilatory drive is a primary respiratory problem. This can result from CNS depression caused by trauma or by some drugs that inhibit respiratory drive such as barbiturates. Hypoventilation increases PCO2 and leads to acidosis. There can be no respiratory compensation for a primary respiratory problem. You don't need to be an astronaut or scuba diver to have CNS depression/trauma. I can attest to that personally.

logfromblammo 8y ago
You are describing woo. Produce objective repeatable measurements, or it didn't happen. The burden is upon the claimant to make a falsifiable assertion and then support it with evidence. Please explain why anyone should deliberately choose to induce alkalosis by breathing exercises. What purpose does that serve? Have the claims ever been examined objectively? Both alkalosis and acidosis are potentially dangerous conditions, and should not be toyed with because of woo.
- macawfish 8y ago
  Okay hold on... Did you take the time to actually read any of the links I posted? Or any of what I wrote? Did you read the quote I shared from the last link? It gave a compelling reason for doing alkalizing breath exercises... Chronically or acutely disrupted respiration from CNS depression related to trauma or anything. This is quite a common kind of situation and the article is saying "people can have acidosis because they aren't breathing well." In that case, according to science and folks traditions alike it's necessary for them to retrain their habits of breath to be more oxygenizing. And there's a spectrum here. You can do alkalizing breath exercises without inducing tetany. I mentioned the tetany exercise because you were asking me to hook up a pH meter to my bloodstream to "objectively prove" that voluntarily changing respiration can lead to significant pH shifts in the blood. I've shared links to non-controversial scientific articles and book exerpts, including peer reviewed ones, corroborating this. Involuntary, chronic shallow breathing or hyperventilation are respectively dangerous because they can cause acidosis or alkalosis that an individual is unable to recover from without some intervention. Just because there also happen to be numerous folk traditions around this, notably pranayama, doesn't nullify the objective, scientific basis for what I'm talking about! If you'd genuinely like to understand my perspective from a scientific point of view, check out this peer reviewer article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17432979.2011.574505 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17432979.2011.57...
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    That article is on psychotherapy. I am not disputing that breathing exercises can make one feel better. I am disputing that the sense of wellness is causally linked to any changes in blood pH. It is perfectly acceptable to claim that breathing exercises are useful for mental health. You are making additional claims that are not supported, regarding health benefits for people that do not have a diagnosis that requires therapy. The folk remedies do not automatically invalidate the claims. They do surround the relevant questions with a cloud of woo, which makes objective study more difficult. This is especially relevant when scammers adopt pseudoscientific terminology that mimics genuine science for the purpose of selling their products and services. It becomes difficult to sort the fact from the fiction, because the fictions are explicitly designed to look like related facts.