Acid-Alkaline Balance by Dr. Weston A. Price

[Guest guest]

Acid-Alkaline Balance by Dr. Weston A. Price

 

_http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/alk1.php_

(http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/alk1.php)

Source: _Acid-Base Balance of Diets Which Produce Immunity to Dental Caries

Among the South Sea Islanders and Other Primitive Races_

(http://www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/Acid_base_bal.html) by Weston A.

Price, DDS, MS, FACD

Read before the New York Dental Centennial Meeting, New York, N.Y., December

4, 1934; reprinted from the Dental Cosmos, September 1935.

Among the many theories regarding the controlling factors for immunity to

dental caries, " potential alkalinity " has been stressed by many as playing the

controlling role. This has been strongly emphasized in the paper by Dr.

Martha Jones entitled " Our Changing Concept of an Adequate Diet in Relation to

Dental Disease. " She and her associates have emphasized this factor in several

previous communications.

I do not find in her reports, however, the type of quantitative data which

seem to be needed for evaluating this problem. The fact that a given

potentially basic diet has been found associated with immunity may have little

significance regarding the role of acid-base balance in establishing immunity.

It is very clear that a satisfactory approach to this problem will require

the consideration of many diets which have been competent to establish and

maintain a very high immunity. No modern civilization provides such a control

group, since dental caries is active and in certain groups rampant among the

individuals of all of our modernized peoples.

It is for this reason I have been making expeditions during several years to

reach the remnants of primitive racial stocks who, like their ancestors, are

characterized by a very high immunity to dental caries and who by their

isolation make possible a critical study of the variables at the point of

contact

with modern civilization where the high immunity changes to a high

susceptibility to tooth decay.

I have previously reported on my studies among the Swiss in the high Alps

(1) in isolated valleys. The people of the Outer Hebrides (2), the Eskimos of

Alaska (3) and the Indians of northern and central Canada (4) have also been

reported. In addition to these we now have very extended data obtained during

the past summer from studies among the Melanesians and Polynesians on eight

archipelagos of the Pacific.

In this report we shall include a consideration of the acid-base balance of

the foods for both these racial stocks and for groups with high immunity to

dental caries and for those who have lost that high immunity.

Figure 1: Dental Caries on Primitive and Modern Food (caries in teeth per

1000 teeth examined)

 

Peoples Primitive Modern Alps 46 298 Hebrides 11 300 Eskimos 0.9

130 Indians 1.6 215 South Sea Islanders 3.4 308

In order to make these data more readily understood when a comparison is

made of the potential acidity of the various diets that have been found capable

of producing and maintaining high immunity, it is important that we

visualize, first, the levels of incidence of tooth decay in these groups while

they

are isolated and also the levels of those of the same racial stocks who had

lost their immunity at the point of contact with civilization.

These are shown for the different groups in Figure 1. There are five groups.

We are using all of the people of the South Sea Islands in one group for

convenience in this study. It will be noted that the isolated Swiss of the high

Alpine valleys had forty-six teeth attacked by tooth decay out of each 1,000

teeth examined. The modernized Swiss who were eating our modern foods had 298

teeth involved with caries for each 1,000 teeth examined.

For the primitive Gallics in the Outer Hebrides these figures were eleven

teeth of each 1,000 teeth examined which had been attacked by dental caries and

for the modernized groups 300 teeth. For the isolated Eskimos less than one

tooth, 0.9, was attacked by caries in each 1,000 teeth examined and for those

at the point of contact with our modern foods 130 teeth were involved.

For the Indians of the far north and interior of Canada living on their

primitive native foods 1.6 teeth were attacked with dental caries, while for

the

modernized Indians 215 teeth. For all of the groups in the South Sea Islands

living on their primitive native foods 3.4 teeth per 1,000 teeth examined had

been attacked by dental caries, whereas among those eating foods of modern

civilization this was increased to 308 teeth.

It is important that we keep these figures in mind as we observe the total

acidity and total base provided in the average daily diets of these various

groups. Figure 2: Acid Base Content of Primitive and Modern Diets

Acid

Base

Peoples Primitive Modern Primitive

Modern

 

Alps 359 165 355 171 Hebrides 248 171 152 152 Eskimos 707 234

382 227 Indians 892 234 628 227 South Sea Islanders 322 203 399

244

The figures for acidity and base content are shown in Figure 2. We have in

this chart the same groups in the same relationship as in Figure 1. The method

of determining the acid and base content of a given food involved

determining the quantity of each of the basic elements -- calcium, magnesium,

sodium

and potassium -- and the acid elements -- phosphorus, chlorine and sulphur.

These determinations have been made by using Sherman's tables with special

determinations of special foods.

These are expressed in terms of cc. of normal acid and normal base, using

the method suggested by Salter, Fulton and Angier in the Journal of Nutrition

for May 1931. The excess of acid over base or base over acid is expressed as

potential acidity or potential alkalinity. It is important to note that in

four of these five groups of primitive racial stocks, living on entirely

different native foods and in widely divergent climates and entirely different

living habits, the immunity-producing diets were found to be higher in acid

factors than in base factors.

In some the divergence is quite small and in others, quite large. It is also

important that, in changing, from high immunity to high susceptibility diets

there was no increase in potential acidity with increased susceptibility to

tooth decay. This graph shows the quantity of acid and base in each of the

diets associated with immunity and also with susceptibility to tooth decay, and

it is of interest to note the very great difference in total acid and total

base contained in the nutrition of the various groups.

The clinical work that has been done by Dr. Jones and her associates in the

Hawaiian Islands has been on a diet that is potentially alkaline, consisting,

as we have learned from her, of poi and milk. The poi is made from powdered

cooked taro to which water has been added and fermentation allowed to take

place for a definite period.

We are primarily concerned with the inorganic acids in evaluating the role

of potential acidity, since the organic acids are largely, if not completely,

oxidized in the body. Fermenting the poi does not therefore materially change

the acid-base balance.

The following are the figures for both acid and base factors for each of the

primitive and modernized diets for the five groups: for the primitive

peoples in the Alps we have as cc.N. acid 359 and base 355; for the modernized

groups we have acid 165 and base 171. For the Gallics of the Outer Hebrides in

the primitive groups we have acid 248 and base 152, for the modernized groups,

acid 171 and base 152.

In the primitive Eskimos diet the acid is 707 cc.N. and the base 382; for

the modernized Eskimos the acid is 234 cc.N. and the base 227. In the primitive

groups of Indians the acid content is 892 cc.N. and the base 628; for the

modernized groups the acid is 234 cc.N. and the base is 227. For the primitive

South Sea Islanders' diet the acid is 322 and the base 399, and for the

modernized groups the acid content is 203 and the base 244.

My data, accordingly, do not support the theory advocated by Dr. Jones.

It is of particular interest that in my studies of the South Sea Island

groups taro was found to be one of the most universally and extensively used

articles of food. When used with adequate primitive diets of all the Island

groups studied, except the Hawaiian Islands, which would include the Marquesas,

Society, Cook, Tonga, New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoan Islands, the taro, which

was cooked by baking in ovens consisting of heated stones covered with leaves

and dirt, produced a very high level of immunity to dental caries in every

instance where the groups were isolated from contact with foods of modern

civilization and where they were using only their native vegetables and fruits

and

animal life of the sea. The nutrition of these people will be discussed from

a chemical and activator basis in another communication, since space does not

permit including it here.

It is very important that dependable data be accumulated as rapidly as

possible which bear upon this problem of acid-base balance of foods, since many

enthusiasts are advocating strongly the elimination or reduction of potentially

acid foods such as cereals, meats and fish. Indeed, a great deal of

propaganda is reaching the profession and laity which places great stress upon

the

importance of keeping the diet potentially alkaline.

It is my personal belief, based on the extensive data that I am

accumulating, from a study of these various primitive groups and their breakdown

at the

point of contact with civilization and its foods, that several constitutional

factors may be involved besides tooth decay, and which are very important. My

investigations are showing that primitive groups have practically complete

freedom from deformity of the dental arches and irregularities of the teeth in

the arches and that various phases of these disturbances develop at the

point of contact with foods of modern civilization.

It is not my belief that this is related to potential acidity or potential

alkalinity of the food but to the mineral and activator content of the

nutrition during the developmental periods, namely, prenatal, postnatal and

childhood growth. It is important that the very foods that are potentially acid

have

as an important part of the source of that acidity the phosphoric acid

content, and an effort to eliminate acidity often means seriously reducing the

available phosphorus, an indispensable soft and hard tissue component.

It is my belief that much harm has been done through the misconception that

acidity and alkalinity were something apart from minerals and other elements.

Many food faddists have undertaken to list foods on the basis of their

acidity and alkalinity without the apparent understanding of the disturbances

that

are produced by, for example, condemning a food because it contains

phosphoric acid, not appreciating that phosphorus can only be acid until it is

neutralized by combining with a base.

An illustration of this is the following case: A girl was brought for

assistance and study who still had her childhood face at sixteen years of age.

There had been marked delay in physical development and function other than

this

growth factor. I was advised that the nutrition of this child had been very

largely guided by the literature of the Defensive Diet League which, as one of

its principal premises, has urged the keeping down of the acid-producing

foods.

This girl was so conscious of her underdevelopment that she disliked to go

to social events with those of her age. When brought to me for assistance and

correction of her facial deformity I did not deem it wise or feasible to

undertake to change the position of the facial bones by use of orthodontic

appliances. I depended entirely on a reinforced nutrition.

We supplied mineral and activator carrying foods, with the hope that the

growth factors might be in part latent and still be capable of stimulation.

There was a very marked improvement in the facial development. In one year she

largely developed her adult face. She is very conscious of this improvement

and, instead of being reticent and reserved, she has become the leader in her

group.

It is very unfortunate that medical and dental science has not looked to the

primitive people earlier for standards of not only physical perfection but

also of nutrition.

Indeed, while I am dictating this text I have been interrupted by a nurse

who has come to inquire whether the teachings so strongly heralded by certain

groups should be followed, namely, that proteins and carbohydrates should

never be eaten together.

I have seldom found anywhere in the world such a high percentage of physical

excellence with high immunity to our modern degenerative diseases as among

these people of the South Sea Islands. Their diet practically every day

consisted of eating the proteins from the animal life of the sea with the

carbohydrates of their land vegetables, many of which were very rich in starch.

This

was equally true of the Gallics in the Outer Hebrides, living almost entirely

on oats and sea foods.

By studying primitive people who have exceedingly high immunity to dental

caries and those people at the point where they lost that high immunity, we

were able to reduce the total number of variables to a minimum. It was then

possible to study critically those factors of the nutrition which are found to

be

changed and the varying amounts which can be directly related to the changed

incidence of dental caries.

This provides still another approach to the problem since, by adding those

factors to a deficient diet which are found to constitute the difference

between that diet and one that has been demonstrated by those primitive peoples

to

be efficient, we have a means for checking and determining whether these

factors when added will change susceptibility to immunity. It is by this

procedure that we can now control dental caries when active, or completely

prevent

it from developing.

It is of particular significance that when all of the foods of these various

primitive groups are reduced to their chemical and activator content they

are found to be relatively equivalent. This strongly indicates the direction in

which the dental profession can profitably move in this matter of the

prevention of tooth decay.

Since many other degenerative processes are found to develop simultaneously,

or nearly so, with the loss of immunity to dental caries, we have strong

evidence that these physical afflictions are, like dental caries, symptoms

rather than unit diseases. This clearly is the direction that modern preventive

medicine will take in order to establish high immunity to the degenerative

diseases.

In every instance in my studies of these primitive racial stocks where I

found that they had made contact with our modern civilization, with the result

that they had lost their immunity to dental caries, that contact included

displacing part of their native diet with imported white flour and sugar and

sweetened goods.

These foods are exceedingly low in Nature's building material for growth and

repair. Refined sugar has practically no minerals or activators, and white

flour has had removed about four fifths of the minerals and nearly all of the

germ with its contained activators. Molasses, or sorghum, carries very little

phosphorus, though it does carry calcium, which is usually provided easily

in safer foods like milk and vegetables. It also carries potassium liberally.

Concentrated sweets of all kinds are too high in caloric value to be safe in

liberal quantity. Our daily limit of two or three thousand calories,

together with our requirement of about two grams of phosphorus in the foods (in

order to obtain two-thirds of that amount for body building), means that to

obtain this amount we would have to eat enough molasses to supply about 13,300

calories, or about ten pounds. This, if possible, would probably do much harm.

To get sufficient phosphorus from white flour products usually requires eating

about four and one-half pounds of white bread daily, which would provide

about 10,000 calories.

In my clinical practice, in which I am endeavoring to put into practice the

lessons I am learning from the primitive people, I do not require that the

foods of the primitive races be adopted but that our modern foods be reinforced

in body building materials to make them equivalent in mineral and activator

content to the efficient foods of the primitive people.

This usually is accomplished by displacing white-flour products with

whole-wheat products, together with eliminating or reducing the high caloric

foods

such as sugars and other sweets, and adding foods that are good providers of

the fat-soluble activators, such as the butter of milk as produced by cows

that are eating liberally of fresh or cured rapidly growing green wheat or rye,

together with the organs of animals and the use of sea foods such as these

primitive people have used so successfully in providing not only high immunity

to dental caries but excellent bodies, with high defense for the degenerative

diseases.

We are learning Nature's methods and undertaking to utilize them. The

chemical content of all of these primitive foods is comparably high in minerals

and

activators, especially the fat-soluble activators, while being relatively

low in calories.

In no instance have I found the change from a high immunity to dental caries

to a high susceptibility among these primitive racial stocks to be

associated with a change from a diet with a high potential alkalinity to a high

potential acidity, as would seem to have been the case had the high alkalinity

balance theory been the correct explanation. If the requisite is as simple as a

potential alkalinity, why has not the addition of sodium bicarbonate to a

deficient diet controlled dental caries?

Bibliography

Price, Weston A.: " Why Dental Caries with Modern Civilization? " Dental

Digest. 89:94, 147, March and April 1933.

Idem: Dental Digest 88:225, June 1933.

Idem: Dental Digest 40:210, June 1934.

Idem: Dental Digest, 40:130, April 1934.