[Georgeo57]

A friend of mine who gives nutritional advice believes that lemons, which are highly acidic, can somehow make the body's pH more alkaline. This view is widespread as shown by the following statement on the Livestrong site;

"Although lemons and lemon juice might seem like they would be acid-promoting in your body, in actuality they are said to be alkalizing substances. That's because there's a difference between whether a food itself contains acid -- as lemon juice does -- and whether it creates acidity in the body, Junger explains. Fresh fruits and vegetables, and their juices, are generally alkalizing, even if they have acidic qualities themselves, he says."

https://www.livestrong.com/article/488395-does-lemon-juice-alkalinize-the-blood/

I found a StackExchange biology page that seems to soundly debunk this position, but, knowing my friend, I 'm guessing she'll want a more authoritative source, which is why I'm posting the question here.

https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/14164/is-lemon-water-an-alkalizing-agent-in-the-body

Thanks in advance!

[wildfyr]

I've heard a version of this too. I think youre screwed. People who believe this kind of jibberish are almost impossible to persuade. If they believed such completely ridiculous claims, then a technical paper where people actually did some work won't persuade them. The problem is a fundamental lack of chemistry understanding. Your stackexchange thread did have a whole bunch of more authoritative sources cited in it.

Someone in the thread posted this paper, which seems pretty darn obvious

http://www.jbc.org/content/113/1/265.full.pdf "Ingestion of citric acid in addition to a constant diet did not affect the pH or the total nitrogen of the 24 hour urine collection. "

[Georgeo57]

Thanks wildfyr,

All we can do is try.

[Borek]

I have never seen any meaningful definition of what "alkalizing the body" or "acidyfing the body" is intended to mean. Internal pH is kept in a very narrow range by many buffers present in the blood and tissues and doesn't change depending on the diet.