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American Journal of Clinical Nutrition... What to believe?


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I wanted to do my own research on alkaline acid theory and the ph level in the body. I wanted to know if that can be proven or it is a myth.

 

 

Some doctors say it is a complete croc.

 

I decided to start with the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

 

I have been reading a few articles in here... how can I determine what is factual what is nonsense what is biased etc...

By typing the keyword "Vegan" I ran into a few articles that potray veganism in a negative way.

 

for example this one :

 

 

 

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 70, No. 3, 543S-548S, September 1999

© 1999 American Society for Clinical Nutrition

Supplements

Choices for achieving adequate dietary calcium with a vegetarian diet1,2,3

Connie M Weaver, William R Proulx and Robert Heaney

 

1 From the Department of Foods and Nutrition, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN; the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC; and Creighton University, Omaha, NE.

 

To achieve adequate dietary calcium intake, several choices are available that accommodate a variety of lifestyles and tastes. Liberal consumption of dairy products in the diet is the approach of most Americans. Some plants provide absorbable calcium, but the quantity of vegetables required to reach sufficient calcium intake make an exclusively plant-based diet impractical for most individuals unless fortified foods or supplements are included. Also, dietary constituents that decrease calcium retention, such as salt, protein, and caffeine, can be high in the vegetarian diet. Although it is possible to obtain calcium balance from a plant-based diet in a Western lifestyle, it may be more convenient to achieve calcium balance by increasing calcium consumption than by limiting other dietary factors.

 

Key Words: Calcium requirements • calcium bioavailability • salt • protein • vegetarian diet • sulfur-containing amino acids • caffeine

 

 

 

How does one find the truth?

Or it is just pick and choose? Some say they work others say they don't

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Here's what I do.

I first look at large population studies. In the example above there are billions of people on this planet that eats plant based diets that don't break their bones. Thus the statement made above is pointless since it (according to me) comes from a less valuable source (in vitro, smaller clinical study, etc).

 

As I see it we get the rough estimates from these population studies. Then we go back to the lab to figure out why we got the results we did. I see a problem with not seeing the forest for all the trees here though since while looking for answers we tend to lose sight of what we initially were looking for. Sometimes this leads to contradictory results from what we had in the population studies and that's when nonsense like the above surface. This is an indication that we have climbed the wrong branch and should go back to try another one. This is not always done and this is probably one of the reasons we have so many fad diets and so many people dying from heart disease.

The data have not really changed the last 10000 years or so. Whole plants were good then, according to the small data they had, and it is still good today.

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yeah evidence does show that meat does make your bones loose calcium but how about the theory of eating more alkaline foods to fight disease and control a healthy a body or even fighting cancer? and the lymphatic system?

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The date on the article is 1999. I would only look at current studies. Why? Because new things are always being considered and research is finding all sorts of new things.

 

Like Calcium intake for Americans. They have found out that the phosphatic acid in soda pop leaches the calcium out of the bones. On a side note, most phosphates are now not on the ingredient list of soda pop. On another side note, cheap manufacturing of soda pop that used ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate produced benzene in cans too (remember that scare? Now you will find one but not the other). So the question is, if we don't drink soda pop, will all that dairy still help us? With all the other ingredients out there in our junkfood/processed food, can we get enough of any nutrient?

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There have been other studies showing that because our bodies really aren't meant to process meat and dairy all that well (even though we still can to survive, although not optimally in my opinion) we really don't absorb any of the nutrients in milk. And meat doesn't have any nutrients in it. It's just fat, water and protein.

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Studies comparing plant and animal protein very clearly show a net calcium loss from bones with animal proteins, because they are more acidic than plant proteins. Always look at the direct intervention studies, not the correlational BS that is used to prop up the status quo. Osteoporosis (and all chronic disease) is directly caused by eating biologically inappropriate food. See my first blog post for an overview and links.

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I agree with offense, it is difficult to see what is truth when there are so many false starts & dead ends.That is the problem with science on its own.It needs a conceptual framework to give it some proper perspective, sometimes.

 

I hear good things about veganism, I hear bad things.I do have a real interest in what science has to say, but essentially I judge it more on how I feel & how you guys feel too.

 

When I stopped eating fish & milk, which were the last things to go when I was transitioning to a vegan diet, I felt so much better in myself.I still do.I feel very very healthy.

 

It could not simply be in my head either as actually I was expecting to feel worse.I thought meat & milk kept me alive.I was wrong, & my body told me that.All the guys on here have felt exactly the same.So in a sense we are conducting our own scientific study, on ourselves.

 

My view is that there may be some cancers we are less likely to get, others that we could get anyway.We may live longer, we may not.But the most important thing for me is the moral of being vegan.I have often said, that even if they proved being vegan was bad for you, I would still do it.

 

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