Drinking Alkaline Water for Psoriasis Treatment

We have discussed in detail about the benefits of warm lemon water for psoriasis. Squeezing lemon juice in water is one of the ways to make your water alkaline. In this post, we would discuss about the overall benefits of drinking alkaline water for psoriasis treatment and what are the various ways of making your water alkaline.

A brief about pH, acidity and alkalinity

In school text books of Chemistry, we have read about pH. In simple terms, pH is a numeric value which determines whether a substance is acidic or alkaline in nature.

If the pH value is 7, substance is considered as neutral.

If the pH value is less than 7, it is acidic and if pH is more than 7, it is alkaline in nature.

What about Body pH

Body pH refers to pH value of all the body fluids (including blood). Your body is designed to work best in alkaline conditions. Ideal body pH is 7.4 i.e. slightly alkaline.

Here, it is interesting to note that body fluid in different parts of the body has different pH level. For example, your stomach acids have a highly acidic environment (pH- 1.5 to 3.5) to breakdown the food that you eat. Similarly, ideal urine pH is 6.5 to 7.0 (slightly acidic) because kidney expels acidic body wastes from your body in the form of urine.

The overall body fluid along with blood should have a pH of around 7.4 for smooth body functioning.

How body pH affects Psoriasis

Body wastes are acidic in nature. Your liver and kidney, the primary organs responsible for eliminating toxins from the body, are continuously working to eliminate these acidic toxins from your body to keep your blood pure and healthy. When the body pH deviates to acidic side, these organs go an extra mile and neutralize the excessive acidity by using alkaline reserves in your body. If this state of acidity persists for a longer time, than the alkaline reserves in your body would cease and minerals such as calcium and magnesium in bones, teeth and other parts of the body would be used to neutralize the chronic acidity. It would cause weakening of your bones, teeth, hairs and nails. Eventually, a stage would come when your body would not have enough minerals and your liver (and kidney) would be already impaired to flush out the toxins- then your skin would play the angel’s role by providing an exit to these acidic toxins in the form of psoriasis scales on various parts of your body.

Chronic acidic body pH is bad for your overall health for obvious reasons:

• All the harmful microbes- bacteria, fungi, viruses, yeast- enjoy acidic environment with low oxygen content. They flourish in acidic environment and their proliferation takes place.
• Increased acidic body pH implies lack of oxygen in your body cells. Your body cells need enough oxygen to purify your blood, maintain a healthy body immunity and keeps your body energized. Famous Nobel laureate Mr. Otto Warburg has related deficiency of oxygen to the development of cancer cells in the human body.
• Dr. Keiichi Morishita, author of the book Hidden truth of Cancer says- when the body pH drops below 6.4, digestive enzymes stop working causing indigestion. It would result in further toxins build up and leaky gut syndrome. Acidic pH also hampers the body’s natural ability to absorb minerals and nutrients from the food that you eat.
• A lot of people complain about acidity problem. Have you ever heard someone complaining about alkalinity problem? Guess, not. So, it makes sense when we say that acidic body environment is not good.

What causes acidic body pH

Unhealthy diet and improper lifestyle are the two main culprits.

Most of the foods and beverages- tea, coffee, carbonated drinks, alcohol, soda, wheat, bread, rice, sugar, refined white flour, bakery, junk food, some meats, egg- are acid forming.

Emotional stress and anxiety- these are also acid forming.

How to test body pH

Unfortunately, it is not possible to detect the exact body pH because different body parts have different pH levels to do their functioning. Still, we can test the pH level of our saliva and urine to have a rough idea about our body pH positioning.

You need pH test strips, easily available at a chemist shop near to you otherwise check them at below Amazon links: –

• How to test pH of saliva

In the morning, before eating or drinking anything, try to fill your mouth with saliva and rotate that saliva within your mouth. It would help in getting more of an average value. Then spit that saliva on a spoon and dip the pH test strips in it for 1-2 seconds. Then, let the pH strip dry for 15 seconds and then match the color of pH strip with the standard color value chart printed on the box of the pH strip. Ideal saliva pH is around 6.8-7.2. A healthy saliva pH means that your body has enough alkaline reserves for smooth body metabolism.

Test at least for 10-15 consecutive days to get an average value.

• How to test pH of urine

In the morning, before drinking or eating anything, when you go for urine discharge, collect some urine. Don’t collect the initial one; let some urine flow and then collect the urine. Initial urine would be more acidic because of obvious reasons. Kidney expels acidic residues from your body through urine. Hence, collect urine after a little flow so that more of an average value can be achieved.

Rest of the procedure is same as for saliva.

Ideal urine pH should be 6.5-7.0 (a slightly acidic).

To get more insight, you can test both saliva and urine for 10-15 days and calculate the average of both.

Remember that this pH testing procedure is quite a qualitative test which would give you a rough estimate only. Hence, even if your test results looks quite fine, it is advisable to make efforts to make your body alkaline because there is a saying- diseases can’t exist in an alkaline body.

How to fix the problem of acidic body pH

Alkaline diet and relaxation techniques like yoga, meditation, physical workout are the best ways to reverse the condition of acidic body pH.

We have already discussed in detail about alkaline diet in one of our previous posts.  All green leafy vegetables, cucumber, carrot, broccoli, spinach, onion, ginger, cabbage, kale, celery, raisins, watermelon, lemon and apple are all alkaline forming fruits and vegetables.

Yoga exercises involve intake of fresh oxygen and breathing out of carbon dioxide from your body to remove toxins from your body and making you more energetic, optimistic and alkaline in nature. A similar effect is achieved by physical exercises and workouts.

Here comes the role of Alkaline water

Apart from an alkaline diet, drinking alkaline Beverages is also very crucial. Unfortunately, more of today’s beverages- tea, coffee, soda, sweetened carbonated drinks, alcohol- are highly acidic in nature.

Although, it is true that gulping a lot of pure drinking water itself is a very good way to flush out the acidic residues from your body. But, the effect of drinking water can be multiplied if we can convert this neutral pH water into alkaline water.

• Psoriasis and psoriasis arthritis- both are relieved by drinking alkaline water. Alkaline water neutralizes the acidic toxic residues (like uric acid) accumulated in the body cells.
• Alkaline water aids in digestion and relieves stomach discomfort.
• Drinking alkaline water of pH value 9 can relieve acid reflux because such a high pH kills pepsin enzymes, the main culprit for this problem.
• Alkaline water is quite effective in body cleansing, particularly colon cleansing.
• Alkaline water optimizes blood pH to increase oxygen level. It speed up the body metabolism and make you energetic.
• Alkaline water hydrates your skin and rejuvenates it by providing powerful anti-aging action. Alkaline water neutralizes free radicals and displays decent anti-oxidant properties.
• Alkaline water restrengthen your body’s natural ability to absorb nutrients and minerals from the food sources.

How to make Alkaline water

These are the minerals (calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium) that make your water alkaline. Alkaline water should have a pH of around 8-9.

Let us discuss few of the easy options of making alkaline water at home without putting too much burden on your wallet.

• Squeezing lemon juice in water

It is one of the most common and convenient way of making alkaline water. Lemon is a citrus fruit and most of the citrus fruits are acidic in nature, then how come lemon water can give alkaline effect?

Lemon is a low sugar fruit, rich in alkaline minerals. When lemon water enters your body, it readily ionizes to give more number of anions (negative charged ions) than cations, giving a highly alkaline effect. All the minerals in lemon- sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium- would be absorbed by your digestive tract to give overall alkaline effect. Do note that lemon water before entering your body is acidic, hence, checking their pH with pH strips would be of no use here.

Replace your early morning coffee/tea with warm lemon water. It is a natural body cleanser, aids in digestion and kick start your body metabolism. It is rich in vitamin C and anti-oxidants also. Lemon is widely recognized for stimulating the bile production by liver which helps in liver detox.

How to make lemon water

Simply take 1 liter (0.3 gallons) of filtered warm water and add juice of 1 big size (or 2 small size) lemons in it. Not only lemon juice, add the lemon fibrous pulp also  into the water. This fluffy pump would add healthy bulk in to your water which would cleanse your colon more effectively. If the lemons were in the refrigerator for overnight, do get them out at least 15-20 minutes before squeezing them.

Just drink this water in the morning and enjoy the benefits. If you want to make more lemon water, just use the same ratio of water and lemon and go ahead.

Read more: Lemon water for Psoriasis

Apart from drinking in the morning empty stomach, you can drink lemon water throughout the day as per your comfort. Gulp a cup of lemon water after every meal to neutralize the impact of any acid forming food if you have eaten.

Bottom line: Lemon water is a natural alkaline water which is cheap and tangy in taste. Don’t forget to rinse your mouth well with plain water after drinking lemon water as a preventive measure against any possibility of erosion in tooth enamel.

• Using baking soda

A lot of people recommend mixing baking soda in water to get alkaline water. It is a cheap and effective way of getting alkaline water. But, I have less confidence on this method. Baking soda is sodium bicabronate- NaHCo3. So, it supplies only Sodium (Na) and none of the remaining alkaline minerals in the body like Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Iron and many more. So, consuming baking soda regularly as your alkaline drink would provide excess of sodium which can lead to water retention in the body. Along with that, excess of sodium is not good for people dealing with hypertension and kidney and liver problems. Large amounts of sodium itself is a trigger for autoimmune diseases also. That’s why table salt (sodium chloride) is also recommended to be replaced with a natural, healthy version like Himalayan pink salt.

On the other hand, lemon water is rich is a variety of alkaline minerals. Hence, I would also go for lemon water over baking soda. You know, that’s why the Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) solution or any sports drink contains the whole gamut of alkaline minerals and not just the sodium.

Baking soda water is better used as an emergency, quick-fix solution to neutralize the hyperacidity in your body. But, it is not a good idea to drink it every day as your alkaline drink.

• Using pH drops

Lemon water doesn’t suit everyone.

• If you are a frequent traveler with not enough time or resources to use lemons.
• If you can’t deal with the tangy taste of lemons.
• If you are a women and you experience experience problems with your menstrual cycle due to lemon water.

Then, pH drops are a good option for you.

These pH drops contain potent alkaline minerals in rich concentrations.

Just follow the instructions on the bottle of pH drops to make your own alkaline water.

The best way of making alkaline water

In my opinion, the best way of making alkaline water is clubbing – lemon and pH drops- together.

Lemon water is definitely one of the best natural drink, but, the mineral content is not good enough to make it a perfect alkaline water substitute. Hence, let us add some mineral rich pH drops in your lemon water to make it the perfect choice.

How to make it

• Essentials: Lemons and pH drops
• Additives: Green powder (or spirulina powder) and Himalayan Pink salt.

Himalayan salt is purest form of edible salt available, enriched with 84 trace minerals and elements. Your body needs an optimum electrolyte concentration in your body for smooth body metabolism. When you add Himalayan salt in your alkaline drink, these 84 trace minerals would combine with water to improve electrolyte concentration in your body. In various parts of the world, doctors recommend replacing table salt (common salt) with Himalayan salt to heal psoriasis. Also, this small pinch of Himalayan salt would make the taste more bearable if you find lemon juice too tangy.

The green powder contains up to 81 vital nutrients- minerals, vitamins, anti-oxidants and added probiotics. The ingredients of green powder includes wheatgrass, broccoli, spinach, beetroot, spirulina, chlorella and added enzymes and probiotics. It is a welcome addition to your morning drink. If you don’t find green powder, you can simply opt for spirulina powder.

Spirulina, a type of blue-green algae, is considered as a ‘super food’ due to its high nutritional density. If you are concerned about nutritional deficiency due to diet restrictions, then spirulina is a good option. All the nutrients in spirulina are easily absorbed and don’t put burden on the digestive system.

Also, it contains vital phyto-nutrients (plant nutrients)- particularly chlorophyll. You can add spirulina in your alkaline water for enhanced benefits.

• If you are not comfortable with lemons, just add full pH drops as per recommendation along with pink salt and green powder.
• If you are a working professional and find it difficult to drink this solution after lunch at the work place, just drink the quota of half liters after returning from the office in the evening.
• To avoid any chances of tooth enamel erosion, rinse your mouth with plain water after gulping alkaline water. Also, maintain a gap of atleast 30 minutes to 1 hour between drinking alkaline water and brushing your teeth.

From where to buy

• Lemons: Get some juicy lemons from a store near to you.
• For other items– pH drops, Himalayan pink salt, Green powder or Spirulina powder- I’ve provided links of products with good user reviews from Amazon as below:

Final words

Making your body alkaline is good for you. Alkaline diet, along with yoga and physical workout can help you out in this matter. When your body is made up of more than 60-70% water, then you can’t ignore the importance of drinking alkaline water for psoriasis treatment. Out of all the water you drink, try to replace 1-2 liters with alkaline water. You can drink this much amount of alkaline water everyday without any after effects.

References:

http://www.approachwellness.com/saliva-ph-versus-urine-ph.html

http://healthwyze.org/index.php/component/content/article/361-the-relationship-between-body-ph-and-disease-and-other-facts-youre-not-supposed-to-know.html

How Much Water Do You Have to Drink to “Undo” a Cola?

http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/healthy-drinks/benefits-alkaline-water-unfiltered

http://news.yale.edu/2013/03/06/yale-researchers-identify-salt-trigger-autoimmune-diseases