Alpha Omega Labs: Hydroxide Solution

Cancers thrive in an acidic environment -- not an alkaline one. What's more, cancer isn't the only degenerative disease to share this characteristic.

"Modern civilization has made more changes to the pH of the diet of homo sapiens in the last forty years than it has in the previous forty thousand. . . And it's all acidic. . ."

It's a simple fact, seemingly tangential to any of the central issues surrounding any of the most recognized therapies used in the cancer field today. But it isn't. The adjustment of pH from acidic (5.8 and lower) to a more neutral (though slightly acidic) pH of around 6.4, is considered critical by many clinicians. The fact is, many alternative cancer care practitioners have been talking about the gradual shift to more acidic foods, including an epidemiological state of mild acidosis that has caused an increase in not just cancer, but also MS and diabetes.

The "acid shift" is well-known and documented, as Westerners have moved more towards processed foods, and away from a diet of fresh foods. The fact is, modern civilization has made more changes to the pH of the diet of homo sapiens in the last forty years than it did in the previous forty thousand -- and, in the name of "shelf stability," it is all acidic.

"The explosion in the use of food-grade acidulents was completely predictable: there is not a single preservative that doesn't work more effectively in an acidic substrate."

Processed foods, especially those that contain water in the 15-50% range (called "intermediate moisture" foods by food technologists), all require preservatives. The explosion in the use of food-grade acidulents, including citric, phosphoric, malic, tartaric, and lactic acids, was completely predictable: there is not a single preservative that doesn't work more effectively in an acidic substrate. In fact, there is not one single food-grade preservative approved by a Western food and drug agency that will work better in a neutral or alkaline environment than it will in an acidic one. The most popular antimicrobial preservatives in use, including all sorbates, benzoates, proprionates, parabens, nitrates, and their salts -- all of them -- all require pH ranges that are well below 4.0 to work optimally. This isn't speculation: it's hornbook food science. Acidulents are everywhere: every can of soda pop, every IM snack product, every jar of tomato sauce, every loaf of bread. Two hundred years ago most of these acidulents weren't even chemically identified, let alone put into use. Today they are ubiquitous. They have thoroughly infiltrated the food supply.

None of this is to suggest that most of these preservatives (most of them are fatty acids, so they're acidic, too) or the acidulents used to make them work better and acidify foods, are inherently harmful. Except for nitrates, there is no credible research to show that approved preservatives are harmful. It is not the preservatives themselves that are harmful. It is the acidic metabolic environments that acidulents and preservatives create in the absence of more alkaline food stuffs that do the damage.

Clinicians who understand the importance of pH balance will often have their patients measure the pH of urine and saliva over several days to see if it is imbalanced. The best time to do this is upon arising in the morning -- well before breakfast. Cancer patients are almost never found to have a pH that is not considerably more acidic than the mean. (One doctor has told us that his cancer patients measure an average of about 5.6, and normal, healthy patients measure about 6.4. This is significant when we take into account that the pH scale is logrithmic: 5.0 is 100 times more acidic than 6.0).

In the main article (at right) we discuss how pH ties together several different therapies and could help us explain other disease states that appear to be unique in their frequency starting in the early-to-mid 1900's and continuing to the present.

We have much research yet to do, but a clear picture is beginning to emerge: you cannot strongly acidify the diet of an entire civilization without seeing a dramatic upsurge in acid-related disorders.

And a correlation between both now appears evident -- and, indeed, historic.