RESEARCH ARTICLE
Acid Base Considerations in Stone-Age Farming Sweet Potato Eaters, Modern-Day Sweet Potato Eaters, and High-Protein Consumers
Thomas Remer*, Shoma Berkemeyer, Friedrich Manz
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 23
Last Page: 28
Publisher Id: TONUTRJ-2-23
DOI: 10.2174/1874288200802010023
Article History:
Received Date: 28/01/2001Revision Received Date: 28/03/2008
Acceptance Date: 01/04/2008
Electronic publication date: 10/4/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Net endogenous acid production (NEAP) can be estimated by a primarily anthropometry-dependent organic acid anion (OA) component and the particularly diet-dependent potential renal acid load (PRAL). However, there is evidence that certain foods may also impact on the OA component. Here, we discuss measurements of urinary 24-h OA excretion obtained in healthy subjects, against the background of relevant literature with a special focus on former Papuan New Guinea stone-age farmers eating predominantly highland sweet potatoes. Contrary to the reports in Papuans, we observed only modest increases of 5-12% in 24-h excretion rates of OAs (including the detoxification product of phenolic and benzoic acids, i.e., hippuric acid) in healthy adults consuming commonly available yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes. This and additional results on OA increases after higher protein intakes suggest that a specification of the NEAP=PRAL+OA model for estimating the diet-dependent acid load to the metabolic system might be useful regarding particular foods and their effects on the OA component.
