Far from being healthy, alkaline diets could actually be harmful, as they recommend removing certain food groups altogether rather than reducing certain types within the groups. Examples would be removing all fats and oils from the diet which provide Essential Fatty Acids, and dairy products, which are excellent sources of vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin D which is difficult to find in foods outside of dairy products.[9].
Weight loss[edit]
As far as weight loss is concerned, a lot of patients will report a notable drop in body fat whilst following the alkaline diet. This is not, however, anything to do with the proclaimed method of action, and is instead because the diet classifies foods as either acid or alkali, and all acidic foods should be avoided. Browsing the list of acid and alkali foods, it should become instantly apparent that the foods to avoid are those classically associated with a high calorie diet (dairy products, fizzy drinks, confectionery, fast food, and just about all fats), and those marked as alkaline are generally fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.[10] If you avoid eating gobs of fat and sugar and otherwise keep the same lifestyle, your weight goes down - who'da thunk it?
Alkaline water[edit]
Of course, with a new fad diet comes new expensive books and gadgets. On the top of the list are water filters or ionisers which claim to alkalinate drinking water and can cost several thousand pounds.[11] Just adding some sodium bicarbonate to tap water is not sufficiently profitable.
Real Water® is claimed to have "millions of added electrons" which makes the water alkaline and improves cell hydration.
A blog entitled Real Water Health written by a Shelley Penney (a retired nurse interested in "health, peace and abundance") publishes many articles advocating the benefits of alkaline water. A list of 17 "Peer Reviewed Articles on Alkaline Water"[12] is given on the site but while they all discuss research on acidosis, none of them mention any benefits from actually imbibing alkaline water. Shelley is not too hot on her chemistry as she claims "because it is very alkaline, ionized water may dissolve accumulated acid waste and return the body to a balance."[13] Very alkaline products are caustic (e.g. drain cleaner); ionized water typically has a pH of 8 which is the same as sea-water. She further claims that "keeping our body fluid pH in an alkaline state may be the first line of defense in fighting any disease," as the body naturally regulates the pH of arterial blood between 7.35 and 7.45 you are likely to be dead before your blood stops being alkaline. As noted above, blood is a buffer solution which has the property that the pH changes very little when a small amount of strong alkali is added to it.
Ray Kurzweil sells alkaline water filters on his website. His transhumanist fans tend to gloss over this really obvious left turn into blatant alternative medicine pseudoscience, preferring to concentrate on his computer pseudoscience.
Consumers need to beware of such alkaline water schemes which encourage the sale of "alkaline water filtration systems" for the above discussed health benefits. One such organization uses multi-level marketing or a pyramid scheme which in some countries like the US is not illegal but is highly frowned upon by the Federal Trade Commission due to the similarity to a Ponzi scheme. The reason is that the organization's sale structure is built upon recruiting new members with the promise of making large profits. These new members must "buy in" to the multi-level market scheme in order to sell the product or service to make these profits. With the promise of large earnings many people are tricked into buying into the marketing plan, such is the case with Kangen alkaline water.
Recruits are promised large profits yet must pay high prices to buy into the plan, they are also promised the many different health benefits of drinking the alkaline water, then after buying in they must also sell the product to new recruits in order to make the profit, the cycle then repeats. Overseas corporations like to use multi-level marketing structure because it allows them to promote their product essentially for free (having members do the promotion for them) while maintaining a low profile making it very hard for governmental organizations to regulate then. The problem is that many of these companies and their products are overvalued and can be very hard to sell. In addition the multi-level marketing plan has a tendency to collapse, just like Ponzi schemes, once the rate of new signups falls below a certain recruitment rate. Sellers of these alkaline water systems purport many health benefits yet there is a lack of scientific research to confirm the benefits. In addition the sellers are not regulated by any governmental agency which may punish them for false or misleading advertising since each agent is an independent sales agent not affiliated with the host company other than they may receive a commission payment when making a sale. Many people in the US have fallen victim to this particular alkaline water filtration company's Ponzi-like scheme.
Quack Miranda Warning[edit]
Claiming a treatment will help treat cancer without concrete evidence is illegal in the UK under The Cancer Act 1939.[14] Most of the sites promoting the alkaline diet have a Quack Miranda Warning on them to bypass legal problems such as this.[15]
No comments:
Post a Comment