Confused about alkaloids

[red22]

There's a hot topic in the health and wellness movement and that topic is alkaline diets. They say that a diet that enables the body to have a balanced pH is not only the key to health, but also enables a person to be less tense.

Here's an example:

NSFW:

Some speakers have taken this a step further and said that many popular drugs, being alkaloids, get a person high because they induce in a person a state of super alkalinity. Example:

Sure signs of acidity are a coffee habit, the desire to smoke cigarettes or marijuana, abuse of alcohol, and use of cocaine and/or other stronger legal or illegal drugs. These drugs contain alkaline stimulants (sometimes called alkaloids) that simulate the feeling of alkalinity and make one “high” for a while, before one comes back down. These drugs have a harsh edge to them. They deplete essential nutrients, exhaust the adrenal glands, and irritate and thicken the skin, lungs, and other organs. When one is acidic, then one may feel pleasantly relaxed or happy while taking these drugs. A major factor in overcoming these “addictions” is to create an acid/alkaline balance in the body. Once there is an acid/alkaline balance,then these drugs no longer make one high but actually create a low.

Eating for Beauty, David Wolfe, 2009

This is another example where the speaker says the same thing as the above: Viktoras Kulvinskas talks about coffee and marijuana.

I also base my interpretation on a lecture of David Wolfe's I attended where he said, "Why do people smoke cigarettes, why do people smoke POT!? Because they alkalize you." At another point he conveyed that if someone takes an alkaline diet too far, they'll be like they're always intoxicated, e.g. really relaxed.


I was wondering if Bluelighters could weigh in on the claim that the alkaline nature of alkaloids is an integral part of their highs.

 

[DL-ark]

There's a hot topic in the health and wellness movement and that topic is alkaline diets. They say that a diet that enables the body to have a balanced pH is not only the key to health, but also enables a person to be less tense.

Here's an example:

NSFW:

Some speakers have taken this a step further and said that many popular drugs, being alkaloids, get a person high because they induce in a person a state of super alkalinity. Example:

Sure signs of acidity are a coffee habit, the desire to smoke cigarettes or marijuana, abuse of alcohol, and use of cocaine and/or other stronger legal or illegal drugs. These drugs contain alkaline stimulants (sometimes called alkaloids) that simulate the feeling of alkalinity and make one “high” for a while, before one comes back down. These drugs have a harsh edge to them. They deplete essential nutrients, exhaust the adrenal glands, and irritate and thicken the skin, lungs, and other organs. When one is acidic, then one may feel pleasantly relaxed or happy while taking these drugs. A major factor in overcoming these “addictions” is to create an acid/alkaline balance in the body. Once there is an acid/alkaline balance,then these drugs no longer make one high but actually create a low.

Eating for Beauty, David Wolfe, 2009

This is another example where the speaker says the same thing as the above: Viktoras Kulvinskas talks about coffee and marijuana.

I also base my interpretation on a lecture of David Wolfe's I attended where he said, "Why do people smoke cigarettes, why do people smoke POT!? Because they alkalize you." At another point he conveyed that if someone takes an alkaline diet too far, they'll be like they're always intoxicated, e.g. really relaxed.


I was wondering if Bluelighters could weigh in on the claim that the alkaline nature of alkaloids is an integral part of their highs.

Uh, thats absolutely ridiculous. THC isn't even an alkaloid so that is such a false statement.. geez. In addition alkaloids salts aren't even alkaline. This sounds like another fad diet/health plan. A chemical's structure and it's ability to interact with receptors in your brain is what contributes to highs... not alkalines.

Goddamn this makes me angry... Absolute pseudo science. Whoever came up with this should "alkalize" themselves by guzzling some sodium hydroxide.

 

[sekio]

Alkaloids are generally alkaline in their free base forms. Hence the name. But usually their salts, which are what are usually used, are acidic.

Considering human cells will only survive in a surprisingly slim pH range and the body's abundance of buffering systems, the whole "alkaline diet" thing is at best a metaphor. Nobody ingests enough alkaloid in a day to actually effect body pH directly without some crazy toxicity.

I'm not exactly certain why proponents of "alkaline diet" say antacids increase acidity, but citric acid/citrus fruit decreases acidity? Seems kind of backwards.

These drugs have a harsh edge to them. They deplete essential nutrients, exhaust the adrenal glands, and irritate and thicken the skin, lungs, and other organs.

Ooh, unsourced generalization.

"Degenerative disease cannot exist when the pH is balanced?" Absolute fucking fabrication, by the way. And the claim that our crops have no nutrients in them any more? We still grow them in dirt, and they still have vitamins and minerals and all that stuff, last I checked.

 

[Solipsis]

Not alkaloids, but binging on something like GBL might that cause metabolic acidosis at some point?

I think it is important to realize that the blood is pH buffered and it is not easily affected like sekio says.

 

[SeenSoFar]

I'm so sick of hearing these stupid pH-based health "theories"! Their only purpose is to separate people from their money. Five seconds of research can debunk every aspect of these "theories," so just what in high hell makes people fall for this crap?

I lol'ed at pH being the mechanism of action behind drugs. I feel like we just went through a time machine and we're at a patent medicine show in the 1800's. Such a claim would be right at home next to a guy flogging snake oil and laudanum...

 

[red22]

Good responses, especially yours, DL-ark, but note that in the David Wolfe quote, he said that they simulate an alkaline state, not create one. He's basically saying that you can get high by gradually alkalizing yourself..and also by taking a molecular shortcut using chemicals that have the same alkaline energy.

 

[SeenSoFar]

Good responses, especially yours, DL-ark, but note that in the David Wolfe quote, he said that they simulate an alkaline state, not create one. He's basically saying that you can get high by gradually alkalizing yourself..and also by taking a molecular shortcut using chemicals that have the same alkaline energy.

That is an equally nonsensical claim. The body needs to stay within a very narrow pH range. You cannot "alkalize" (or "acidize") yourself and see any desirable result, unless of course you desire injury or death. Within limits the body's pH buffers will keep things in the proper range. If you overwhelm those mechanisms, you end up with either acidemia or alkalemia, depending on which direction the pH is being forced in. When you end up with either of these states you are prone to all sorts of lovely benefits like the denaturation of proteins, enzyme inactivation, and if you're really lucky, death!

Please forgive my sarcasm, I'm just really bitter about this topic. I had both a relative and a close friend be taken in by this exact "alternative health philosophy." Both of them suffered from serous yet treatable conditions, yet bought into this "alkalization" nonsense as their treatment of choice despite my best efforts. My relative is dead, my friend has brain damage which has impacted his motor skills, speech and other essential functions severely. The people pushing this stuff should be jailed. They take advantage of desperate people to sell books and seminars. It disgusts me greatly...

 

[JahSEEuS]

That is an equally nonsensical claim. The body needs to stay within a very narrow pH range. You cannot "alkalize" (or "acidize") yourself and see any desirable result, unless of course you desire injury or death. Within limits the body's pH buffers will keep things in the proper range. If you overwhelm those mechanisms, you end up with either acidemia or alkalemia, depending on which direction the pH is being forced in. When you end up with either of these states you are prone to all sorts of lovely benefits like the denaturation of proteins, enzyme inactivation, and if you're really lucky, death!

Please forgive my sarcasm, I'm just really bitter about this topic. I had both a relative and a close friend be taken in by this exact "alternative health philosophy." Both of them suffered from serous yet treatable conditions, yet bought into this "alkalization" nonsense as their treatment of choice despite my best efforts. My relative is dead, my friend has brain damage which has impacted his motor skills, speech and other essential functions severely. The people pushing this stuff should be jailed. They take advantage of desperate people to sell books and seminars. It disgusts me greatly...

I've certainly acidized myself with desirable results, if you catch my drift. I'm sorry to hear about your friend and family who got caught up in this. From my experience the human body does a good job of regulating itself, and I don't know the science behind it, but the buffers you mention make sense.

My mother is always pushing drinking lemon water, because the midwife at her work says it helps maintain pH balances by breaking down into alkaline or something in the body?

 

[BlueIV]

I'm so sick of hearing these stupid pH-based health "theories"! Their only purpose is to separate people from their money. Five seconds of research can debunk every aspect of these "theories," so just what in high hell makes people fall for this crap?

I lol'ed at pH being the mechanism of action behind drugs. I feel like we just went through a time machine and we're at a patent medicine show in the 1800's. Such a claim would be right at home next to a guy flogging snake oil and laudanum...

At least this one used pH and not Ph.

 

[sekio]

Citric acid does eventually metabolise to bicarbonate, but oral administration of lemon/orange juice isn't an antidote for acidosis