Vegan Fitness with Brendan Brazier – Alkaline vs. Acid Why Your Body’s pH Matters Part 1

中文版

Last lesson you learned how you can build a balanced nutritional profile that includes the best proteins, complex-carbohydrates and fats this planet has to offer. This lesson you’ll learn why it’s important to create an alkaline body for yourself so you can:

• Improve sleep
• Avoid diseases (like cancer and osteoporosis)
• Increase energy
• Lose weight

Alkalinity

It’s a concept that’s fairly new to most people: the food you eat contributes to the acidity or alkalinity of your body. Why should you care about your body’s pH? Because when your body’s pH drops (meaning it has become more acidic), the likelihood of ailments increases sharply. If your objective is to thrive and live in optimum health, your pH matters!

A healthy or neutral pH for your body is about 7.5—but what can you do to keep it in this healthy zone?The simple answer is to choose more foods that are alkaline-forming. The food you eat has a direct effect on your pH—you can increase the pH level in your body (making it more alkaline) by incorporating a greater portion of alkaline forming food into your diet.

The Costs of Acidity

If you’ve never heard about pH balance and its very important role in your health, you’re probably wondering how your body has coped with any imbalance you’ve had to this point in your life. Luckily, your body comes equipped with a natural buffering system that keeps your overall pH within a small range so it can function.The bad news? This buffering system comes at a long-term cost when it’s constantly working to buffer an overly acidic pH (called acidosis).

When your body is in a state of acidosis, this buffering system compensates by drawing on stores alkaline-forming minerals found in your body. Its number one source for alkaline-forming minerals? Your bones! Calcium (which neutralizes acid) gets leached from your bones to bring your pH back into balance. Over time, this leaching process—and not simply a lack of dietary calcium alone—contributes to the development of osteoporosis.

Acidosis is often a silent factor if you’re prone to fatigue: since acidity is a stressor in your system, cortisol levels rise, impairing sleep. Contributing to overall stress, acidosis is also believed to be a leading cause of other concerns, including kidney stones, reduced levels of growth hormone, loss of lean muscle mass and increased body fat.

Constant, low-grade acidosis affects your body at the cellular level; it’s responsible for an increase in free-radicals (those damaging molecules you’re trying to stop by eating antioxidant-rich foods) and a decrease in cellular energy. On top of that, bacteria and viruses crave acidic environments to grow in, contributing to still more health challenges.

Research shows that cancers can’t develop in an alkaline environment—that alone is a pretty compelling reason to take control of your pH (nevermind avoiding all the other possible costs)!

What Causes Acidity?

Acid-forming foods are the number-one cause of an overly-acidic system. In fact, the overconsumption of acid-forming foods plays a significant role in one of North America’s largest health problems—excessive weight.

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Brendan Brazier (born March 1, 1975, in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian endurance athlete, author, advocate of a plant-based diet for personal and environmental health, and creator of the Vega line of whole food nutritional products. Brazier is a former professional Ironman triathlete (1998–2004) and author of The Thrive Diet (Penguin, 2007) and Thrive Fitness (Penguin, 2009).

 
Brendan Brazier 纯素健身 – 碱与酸 人体pH数值为何重要 第一部分

翻译：Liyun
审核：Terry

上堂课大家学会了如何建立一份营养平衡的食谱，包括世界上最好的蛋白质、复杂碳水化合物以及各种脂肪。本堂课中你将学到为什么碱性身5体很重要，这样你就能：
改善睡眠
避免疾病（例如癌症和骨质疏松)
提高精力
减轻体重

碱性
你吃的东西对你身体的酸碱度会有影响,这对于多数人来说这是一个挺新鲜的概念。为什么要关心身体的pH值?因为当你身体的pH值下降（意味着变得更加具有酸性)，生病的可能性就会急剧增高。如果在生活中活力迸发，处于最佳健康状态是你的目标，那么pH值就事关重大！
人体健康或中性的pH数值是大约是7.5。但是如何才能让它保持在这个健康范围内？
简单的回答是选择吃更多的能在体内产生碱性的食物。你吃的食物直接影响到你的pH值。通过在饮食中加大碱形成食物的比例,你可以来提高身体的pH值。

酸性的代价
如果你没听说过什么是pH值平衡，及它对你的健康扮演了一个非常重要角色，那么或许你会想知道身体是如何应对不平衡的状况。
幸运的是，人体具备了一种自然机制，使总体pH值保持在小幅度内变化，从而使人体能正常运作。可不好的消息呢？当这个缓冲系统在不停中和过度酸性pH值（称作酸过量)时，会带来一个长久的代价。
在身体处于过度酸性中，缓冲系统要通过提取体内碱形成矿物质的方法来补偿。首当其冲的碱形成矿物质来源是什么？就是你的骨骼!为了让你的pH值恢复平衡，（中和酸的）钙从你的骨骼中被析取出来。久而久之析取过程（不光是饮食中的钙缺乏）会促成骨质疏松。
如果你易疲劳，那么酸过量经常是一个潜在原因:由于酸性是一个压力源，从而会导致皮质醇值升高，后者导致影响睡眠质量降低。酸过量带来了整体精神压力，从而被认为是造成包括肾结石，发育荷尔蒙降低，肌肉减少，体脂肪增加等问题的首要原因。
长期酸过量会从细胞级别上影响到你的身体；
造成自由基（即那些人们试图通过吃富含抗氧化物丰富的食物以阻止产生、具有破坏力的那些分子）数目增加，和细胞能量降低。此外，酸性环境是细菌和病毒渴求的生长环境，从而会带来更多健康难题。
研究表明癌症无法在碱性的环境中产生，单这一点就为你应该控制个人pH值提供了一个很好理由！（更别说能避免其它可能的代价)

是什么造成酸性?
酸形成食物是造成过度酸性环境的首要原因。实际上，吃过多酸形成食物在北美洲最大健康问题之一肥胖中扮演了重要角色

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Brendan Brazier（1975年3月1日出生于英属哥伦比亚温哥华市）是一个加拿大耐力运动员，作家，倡导以植物为主的饮食习惯，也是Vega系列营养食品的创立者。Brazier也曾是一位铁人三项运动员（1998-2004）以及《The Thrive Diet》（企鹅出版社，2007年）和《Thrive Fitness》（企鹅出版社，2009年）的作者。