The Link Between Acid and Diabetes

I found this article in the vegetarian society magazine that looked interesting, it's about the connection of dietary acid and diabetes. The article begins with explaining that different foods contain varying amounts of acid; in particular, animals products such as meat, fish and dairy are highly acidic whereas fruit and veg are low. Therefore most of us following the typically western diet will be consuming foods that are highly acidic and this as you can imagine is bad because a lot of acid will be harmful to the body. It specifically mentions a condition called Chronic Metabolic Acidosis, which is something anyone who has a high acidity diet can develop; thus leading to further problems such as kidney stones, high blood pressure (hypertension), loss of bone density and diabetes.

There was a study carried out involving over 65000 women investigating this link between acidity and diabetes. The health checks and questionnaires the women completed showed evidence that women who had a high acidity diet were more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes and this increase could be as great as 56% more likely. So in terms of the science of why this is happening, high acidity diets are associated with a resistance to insulin and the ability to regulate sugar levels. Along with the fact that high acidity diets are generally high in saturated fat and protein it also suggests a link to obesity.

As the article mentioned at the beginning eating plenty of fruit and veg will help lower acidity levels in the body; however it's important to consider that it's also not good for your body to have very low acidity levels (high alkaline) as this can also have negative consequences. Therefore in order to have a healthy acid/alkaline balance we need to consume the correct amounts of both high acid foods (meat, cheese...) and low acidity foods (fruit and veg).