I was recently having a discussion with someone about whether lemon water actual

Question

I was recently having a discussion with someone about whether lemon water actually increases the pH of your body (by which I assume they mean the blood); their claim was that once Citric acid was metabolised it results in an increase in pH due to the "anionic properties of citric acid".

Now to me this sounds like something which cannot possibly be true and appears to be a crazy health fad (they seem to spuriously appear and gain popularity now and again), and I cannot find any scientific papers or articles to support or refute their claim.

Can anyone provide a reliable scientific reference or provide a reasonable scientific explanation (preferably accessible to a layman with only A-level (college level) understanding of chemistry and biochemistry) which either supports or refute the claim that drinking lemon water (citric acid) increases the pH of the blood?

Explanation / Answer

The blood pH is tightly controlled, since variations of it are quite dangerous for us. Under normal circumstances the pH is 7.4 (with a normal range between 7.35 and 7.45). Below that we are talking about acidosis, above it about alkalosis. If the blood pH goes about 7.8 or below 6.8, death will occur. This pH is maintained by the Bicarbonate-buffering system, for details see here and here. Food that we take up does not directly influence the blood pH (and there is also no reason for us to do so, since this is tightly controlled and regulated), so this is a health fad.

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