Does Anyone Have References that Validate the Use of Urine pH as a Proxy for Blood/ECF pH?

[yerrag]

I don't think that the imbalance from KCl is minimal, it's not like MgCl2 that has one part of magnesium for two parts of chloride, but compartment distribution is different in both cases, there can be a significant amount of unpaired K inside the cell and Cl outside.

Are you talking about gut absorption, as per Remer?

Are you referring to Table 1?

So yes, gut absorption rates are:

Cl 95%
Mg 32%
K 85%
Na 95%

Based on this MgCl2 is a very high acidic load, KCl is lesser, but nonetheless, there is acidic load, but with NaCl, there is no acidic load.

 

[yerrag]

I think that it provides about 6.5x the amount of magnesium, but if you consumed it spaced out, it shouldn't have been disturbing.

Do you respond to plain craponate salts the same way? It differs from hydrocraponate in how it affects the person in spite of both being alkalinizers.

I don't feel any worse taking either mag carbonate or sodium bicarbonate, or even potassium bicarbonate.

I thought I needed the bicarbonate, but not taking it is fine as my urine and saliva pH has been fine without bicarbs. So maybe ifI were in a condition that keeps making me acidic, I might need them But then again, as long as the acidemia isn't so bad, I can just let my acidic condition boil over, considering it is just the body correcting a condition, which is temporary,

I was thinking maybe taking the bicarb was leading to excess urinate, but my heavy urination continues even without taking bicarbonates. But just the same, I don't think I need to take bicarbonates when my body is well capable of producing enough CO2.

 

[yerrag]

The kidney can alkalinize through the excretion of acids and recovery of bases. The concentration of free hydrogen ions in urine is fairly low, so there has to be a fate for them. Potassium and sodium can't take up hydrogen ions, so they can't do anything about this directly. In facto, if hydrocarbonate is formed in kidney cells from dissociation of carbonic acid (yielding hydrogen and hydrocarbonate ions), sodium is recovered from the lumen of the tubule on its way out for excretion in exchange of hydrogen ion, so that hydrocarbonate has a pair to maintain ion neutrality when returning to circulation. This means that sodium is lowered in urine while hydrogen is increased and buffers are needed to prevent it from becoming too acidic.

What are the buffers you speak of?

Is ammonia a buffer, so this way the hydrogen can attach to the ammonia to make ammonium (NH4+), such that for example instead of HCl, which is highly acidic, NH4Cl can be excreted.

What if there's not enough carbonic acid, and then what? So the kidney excretes KCl, which isn't too acidic, and the H+ that is removed from HCl can be paired with another anion that isn't as acidic as Cl-. So while potassium and sodium can't take up hydrogen ions, they can directly turn HCl into say KCl, to allow KCl to be excreted as it isn't too acidic, unlike HCl.

So you can consider potassium and sodium to be buffers, in this sense. You cannot totally rely on ammonia to be used as the cation to be used to pair with anions to excrete acid through urine. Ammonia has to be converted from glutamate, and requires work by the kidneys, and too much reliance on ammonia will tax the kidneys.

 

[Amazoniac]

Sorry, I really have a hard time understanding what you're saying. Please clarify as you're going way over my head:

Do you mean that taking a lot of garlic can change cellular respiration, and it does so because less oxygen accepts hydrogen ions and decreasing availability of waste produced (producticide- tawh era gniklat tuoba?)

Why does less oxygen accept hydrogen ions, thus decreasing waste production? Can you be more specific?

Is this about less oxygen being available for respiration to go from glycolytic and moving on to the TCA cycle? If so, why not say so? If not? What are you saying?

Stunts of such kind can put you in a stressed state where incomplete oxidation of fuel is made worse. If energy requirements remain high to fix the issue, ATP consumption releases hydrogen ions, there can be a mismatch between how fast it's being produced and degraded, and it can increase the acidic load. It can be compounded by other factors such as mobilization of fatty acids.

Are you talking about gut absorption, as per Remer?

Are you referring to Table 1?

So yes, gut absorption rates are:

Cl 95%
Mg 32%
K 85%
Na 95%

Based on this MgCl2 is a very high acidic load, KCl is lesser, but nonetheless, there is acidic load, but with NaCl, there is no acidic load.

There's that, but I was referring to a salt dissociating into different compartments. The average absorption of the ions can be the same, yet if their proportion is altered after absorption, there will be a cation or an anion in excess without a pair, creating an imbalance.

This explains the ability of NaCl to acidify because Cl appears to be present beyond needs. But to be fair, we know that sodium and chloride are responsible for 40% and 60% of the weight of its purified salt, therefore chloride is present at 1.5x the content of sodium. If dietary chloride was really in excess, the urine had to contain chloride as >1.5x the amount of sodium to represent the dumping of its surplus. However, based on the urine composition link posted here, there are 3.5 g of Na and 5 g of Cl per liter, this is only 1.45x. So, in spite of chloride being ingested in greater amounts than sodium and the supposed preference for sodium in fluids, it's actually sodium that has a more substantial elimination.

What are the buffers you speak of?

Is ammonia a buffer, so this way the hydrogen can attach to the ammonia to make ammonium (NH4+), such that for example instead of HCl, which is highly acidic, NH4Cl can be excreted.

What if there's not enough carbonic acid, and then what? So the kidney excretes KCl, which isn't too acidic, and the H+ that is removed from HCl can be paired with another anion that isn't as acidic as Cl-. So while potassium and sodium can't take up hydrogen ions, they can directly turn HCl into say KCl, to allow KCl to be excreted as it isn't too acidic, unlike HCl.

So you can consider potassium and sodium to be buffers, in this sense. You cannot totally rely on ammonia to be used as the cation to be used to pair with anions to excrete acid through urine. Ammonia has to be converted from glutamate, and requires work by the kidneys, and too much reliance on ammonia will tax the kidneys.

The main ones are phosphate and ammonia.

I'm not implying that it's good to depend on ammonia, just that potassium and sodium can't replace it once the burden is at the kidney.
- Most Important Urinary Buffer: Phosphate or Ammonia? | Epomedicine

 

[yerrag]

Stunts of such kind can put you in a stressed state where incomplete oxidation of fuel is made worse. If energy requirements remain high to fix the issue, ATP consumption releases hydrogen ions, there can be a mismatch between how fast it's being produced and degraded, and it can increase the acidic load. It can be compounded by other factors such as mobilization of fatty acids.

Stunts- you must mean excessive consumption of garlic. Making the ecf acidic, causing low CO2 in blood, and causing ischemia, causing incomplete oxidation of fuel. Producing lactic acid. This leads to poor energy production, relying on glycolysis instead of oxidative metabolism. It will come down to the body relying on alternative pathways of energy production, which is an adaptation that is stressful. Am I deciphering your meaning correctly here?

The average absorption of the ions can be the same, yet if their proportion is altered after absorption, there will be a cation or an anion in excess without a pair, creating an imbalance.

This is going into hypothetical scenarios. Can you be more specific as to why and how the proportion can be altered?

This explains the ability of NaCl to acidify because Cl appears to be present beyond needs. But to be fair, we know that sodium and chloride are responsible for 40% and 60% of the weight of its purified salt, therefore chloride is present at 1.5x the content of sodium. If dietary chloride was really in excess, the urine had to contain chloride as >1.5x the amount of sodium to represent the dumping of its surplus. However, based on the urine composition link posted here, there are 3.5 g of Na and 5 g of Cl per liter, this is only 1.45x. So, in spite of chloride being ingested in greater amounts than sodium and the supposed preference for sodium in fluids, it's actually sodium that has a more substantial elimination.

But isn't the molarity of each what's important, and not each of their weight? Molarity-wise, they are the same.

The main ones are phosphate and ammonia.

I didn't know this. But what then makes the difference between a person whose ecf pH yoyos and one whose pH varies fluctuates less and within a tight band? What makes one have a better pH buffer system over the other?

 

[Amazoniac]

Stunts- you must mean excessive consumption of garlic. Making the ecf acidic, causing low CO2 in blood, and causing ischemia, causing incomplete oxidation of fuel. Producing lactic acid. This leads to poor energy production, relying on glycolysis instead of oxidative metabolism. It will come down to the body relying on alternative pathways of energy production, which is an adaptation that is stressful. Am I deciphering your meaning correctly here?

Yes, the dietary stunts can trigger a reaction that mimics chronic metabolic impairment, different issues leading to a similar response that's not specific and it might be confusing to interpret.

This is going into hypothetical scenarios. Can you be more specific as to why and how the proportion can be altered?

Not at all. Each compartment keeps ions in a preferred proportion that happens to differ from the salts ingested. This has to be taken into account to predict their effect.

But isn't the molarity of each what's important, and not each of their weight? Molarity-wise, they are the same.

That's considered. A rough comparison:

Spoiler

Volumes aside, whether it's consumed purified or in sea salt, the proportions aren't the same, there's likely one in excess or lack of the other with some ion making up for it.

Below is an experiment that supplemented either edemium or nagmacide through the use of various salts, some of them that you would predict to have an acidifying effect on plasma, yet the opposite occurs: the outcome depends on the context. Only poison/"vitamin" A is toxic anywhere at any dose and time, it's very harmful.

- Acid-Base Balance and Sodium-to-Chloride Ratio in Diets of Laying Hens

Spoiler: Edemium salts added

The 'coon' salt is acetate, but it doesn't matter.

Spoiler: Nagmacide salts added

 

[yerrag]

I'm coming back to this thread, which I had forgotten about but found after a search on the subject.

I'm happy to say that i've figured out the answer I posed, and the answer is:

Urine pH is not a proxy for ECF pH.

My question also assumes ECF pH and blood pH are the same. And they're not. This may sound heretical, but it makes sense after careful thought and consideration. You will only know what I'm saying after reading the articles.

Breath rate is the proxy for ECF pH, but the use of urine and saliva pH together with breath rate gives us an additional understanding of our systemic state.

I kept reading these articles over again in order to understand these concepts. The articles are not an easy read, even for me. I understand a bit more about acid-base regulation involving the lungs and kidneys, and the role of electrolytes as maintaining this balance, but still, it was hard to see sense in the ideas put forth in these articles. I had to keep going back to these articles, and each time I came back it makes more and more sense.

Some of the points are:

- Breath rate lower than 14 is alkaline; higher than 14 bpm is acidic.
-At optimal acid-base balance, breath rate is 14, and urine pH is 6.2 - 6.4, and saliva pH is 6.6-6.8.
-An average urine'saliva pH of lower than 5.8 in indicative of metabolic acidosis while higher than 7 is of metabolic alkalosis.
-The formula of average urine/saliva pH is: (2*saliva pH + urine pH)/3
-When acidic (as determined by breath rate), it's normal for urine pH to be acidic as well, and for saliva pH to be more alkaline. As urine pH being acidic means the kidneys are going its job to clear acidity, and saliva pH being compensatory for the ecf pH. When alkaline, same reasoning goes.
-So an acidic urine pH isn't really something to be so worried about as it means the kidneys are working to excrete acid when the ecf pH is acidic.
-Serious cases of electrolyte deficiency can be manifested in cases where one's ecf is acidic, yet the urine pH is alkaline, or when one's ecf is alkaline, yet the urine pH is acidic. There is also something really wrong when the saliva pH is lower than the urine pH.

The following articles explain these concepts:

Biological Terrain 1

pH, BUGS, & ROT. Understanding Biological Terrain When your body's blood pH changes away from the ideal, it can become an environment for opportunistic microorganisms to grow and flourish.

biomedx.com

Metabolic Acidosis

This is the condition where someone is systemically too acid. The extracellular plasma fluid has a low pH wherein the H+ concentration is high and the bicarbonate level is low. Just as in metabolic

biomedx.com

Metabolic Alkalosis

In lieu of a case study, I'm just going to touch a wee bit on the topic of metabolic alkalosis. This is the condition where someone is too alkaline. Yep, too alkaline. The extra cellular space

biomedx.com

Measuring breath rate can be done by newer oximeters with the feature, although it still takes some practice to get the breath rate since the measured value goes all over the place. I usually end up getting the average between the low and high, and to see confirmation in the value that appears more often. It's cheaper this way, as buying a capnograph (around $300) is 10x more expensive. Cheaper ways are to ask someone to measure your breath rate, or for you to do it using a free Android app called Breath Counter. But I gave up on using the app as I'm always aware I'm being measured and I can't help but slow down my breathing.

Finally, I can make sense of measuring my own acid-base balance and be able to use it towards improving my health.

 

[Peatness]

This is useful thread, thank you all. Dr Peat writes a lot about sodium but seldom chloride, maybe he has but I haven’t noticed. Does anyone have any references where he does?