How Do You Get Your Saliva To Be Alkaline And Not Acidic?

[welshwing]

Anyone know how to maintain an alkaline saliva pH?

I remember reading someone paraphrase Ray Peat saying the #1 factor in good teeth is having alkaline saliva.

This makes perfect sense. Your teeth are constantly covered in saliva so having a pH of 7 or more is the #1 way to prevent cavities and erosion of enamel. Everything is pointless if you have acidic saliva because you're constantly dissolving your teeth.

This confuses me though. Fruits (especially lemon and lime) are strongly alkalizing but milk, potatoes and cheese are "acid-forming" according to online food pH lists:
Detailed Listing of Acid / Alkaline Forming Foods

I've never had a cavity eating only milk and cheese all my life, so what exactly causes saliva to become acidic or alkaline?

 

[Xisca]

Everybody is confused about this pH stuff!
ALL fruits are acidic as their own pH, except of course banana, papaya, avocado, melon.
So, you can just wash your mouth with a mild alcalin: baking soda.

It is all different when you refer to the result AFTER metabolising food.
Meat leaves an acidic residue due to a lot of phosphat (animals eat bones with calcium, so no problem with their carnivore diet)
Fruits and milk leave an alcaline residue.

This clears one point, though I do not yet have the answer about making saliva more alkaline. I just know about the baking soda tip...

 

[Tenacity]

I believe I remember reading somewhere that mineral balance was also important for oral health, so adequate amounts of calcium, sodium and magnesium are good for teeth (alongside the vitamins required to utilise them). As for consuming food, I tend to consume dairy after acidic fruits to minimise the acid damage.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Meat leaves an alcaline residue

 

[Xisca]

Thanks SS for point my unvoluntary mistake, of course, I corrected it, I meant acidic!!!!!

Tenacity, I am not sure that it changes anyting IN THE MOUTH. Cleaning is better, because we speak of local acidity. If anyone knows better than cleaning with baking soda.... I do it of course without toothbrush! Just rinsing the mouth, no scrubing!

 

[Tenacity]

Tenacity, I am not sure that it changes anyting IN THE MOUTH. Cleaning is better, because we speak of local acidity. If anyone knows better than cleaning with baking soda.... I do it of course without toothbrush! Just rinsing the mouth, no scrubing!

I may be remembering incorrectly, but the logic that good mineral balance improved oral health was because trace amounts of the minerals are present in the saliva, so eating adequate amounts optimises mineral content of the saliva. This would be the change in the mouth you were looking for, no?

I brush my teeth with a liquid calcium toothpaste, and they've never looked or felt better since before I did that.

 

[tara]

It is all different when you refer to the result AFTER metabolising food.

I think this is important. Short-term and long term effects of some foods may differ.
I would not assume all online lists are reliable on pH effects of foods.

I believe I remember reading somewhere that mineral balance was also important for oral health, so adequate amounts of calcium, sodium and magnesium are good for teeth (alongside the vitamins required to utilise them).

Me too.
I would expect at least some forms of these (eg calcium carbonate like eggshells, but I don't know all about which forms) to have an alkalinising effect on the system, and therefore the saliva.

I brush my teeth with a liquid calcium toothpaste, and they've never looked or felt better since before I did that.

Do you want to mention which?

AIUI, according to Reams/RBTI, someone healthy with good mineral reserves will have a systemic (intercelllar) pH of 6.4. This allows the body optimal digestion and use of nutrients in food. This would be reflected by UpH and SpH - both around 6.4 (range 6.2-6.8), but UpH and SpH can both be temporarily affected by recent factors - sleep, recently eaten foods. (Peat has also mentioned optimal 24hr UpH as 6.3-6.7.)
Reams apparently never had his family brush with anything other than lemon juice and salt, and they reportedly had healthy teeth. I don't know if this is a good idea for everyone or not. Not tried it myself.

I would not assume constant or average alkaline saliva (pH >7) to be optimal.

 

[Tenacity]

Do you want to mention which?

I use Arm and Hammer's Enamel Pro Repair, which is a baking-soda based toothpaste with liquid calcium that lacks glycerin.

 

[Xisca]

Yes, we agree that pH of food itself is the pH they have in the mouth while eating, and how it influence our internal pH is something else, depending on metabolisation.

Great to mention this intracellular pH, Tara, which is slightly acidic! When we talk about alkalinising, it means almost nothing or everything. If I am right, the extracellular medium is what is slightly acidic, in contrast with the intra-cellular medium. UpH and SpH, this I do not know what it is....

I think that saliva is alkaline when we eat carbohydrates, because if the ptyaline that helps to start converting them to sugar (chewing wheat grains, raw ones from the field as you might have done as childrn, makes them taste sweet in very little time)

 

[tara]

I use Arm and Hammer's Enamel Pro Repair, which is a baking-soda based toothpaste with liquid calcium that lacks glycerin.

Thanks Tenacity. Don't suppose you know what the patented 'Liquid Calcium TM' is? Looks as though it may be available here, for the cost of about 5 years worth of my current toothpaste (which has calcium sodium phosphosilicate).

Great to mention this intracellular pH, Tara, which is slightly acidic!

Actually, I was referring to intercellular pH, not intra-. I haven't yet got my head reliably round intracellular pH, though Peat has talked about it.

UpH and SpH, this I do not know what it is....

Urine pH and saliva pH.

 

[Tenacity]

Thanks Tenacity. Don't suppose you know what the patented 'Liquid Calcium TM' is? Looks as though it may be available here, for the cost of about 5 years worth of my current toothpaste (which has calcium sodium phosphosilicate).

Looking at the ingredients, I believe it is calcium sulphate. Although apparently calcium sulphate isn't very soluble, so I'm not sure how it could be liquid...

 

[tara]

Looking at the ingredients, I believe it is calcium sulphate.

Thanks.

 

[Xisca]

Actually, I was referring to intercellular pH, not intra-. I haven't yet got my head reliably round intracellular pH, though Peat has talked about it.
Urine pH and saliva pH.

Ho, so all this you mention was slghtly acidic! And people always say it has to be alcaline!
So all wrong?

If I understood Peat well, intercellular should be slightly alkaline, and intracellular slightly acidic, due to carbonic acid forming in normal cell respiration.... Then this acid goes out of the cell with sodium, which is +, so it equilibrates the carbonic acid.... When there is lactic acid forming, then the cell keeps the sodium, and the cell switches to alkaline....
This is what I remember, dunno if I am right or wrong....

 

[Blossom]

and intracellular slightly acidic, due to carbonic acid forming in normal cell respiration.

This is my understanding too.

 

[PeatThemAll]

A different way to review acid load: PRAL.

Source: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/acid-base-foods-pral.pdf

 

[tara]

If I understood Peat well, intercellular should be slightly alkaline,

Maybe I missed this. There is a quote from him about optimal 24hr UpH being in the range 6.3-6.7. This is easier to test than directly trying to measure intra - or inter-cellular pH.

I think part of Reams point was that 6.4 is the pH at which the biological systems can most easily assimilate and use various minerals etc to build and repair tissues/cells. If the system spends a long time far away from that range, some necessary minerals are hard to get/use. I think his background before getting into his systems for supporting human health was in supporting horticulture and agriculture with things like soil mineral analysis, and he was a chemist and mathematician, tended to think and describe things in terms of frequencies. For him, a persistently alkaline UpH tended to go with slowed gut transit, amongst other things.

 

[Funnywhensunny]

So what is RP view on supplementing alkaline foods and supplements? How can ingesting such things in an acidic gut alter the ph of various tissue and bodily fluids, such as saliva or urine?