ABSTRACT
We describe here acid-base physiology in humans who eat typical modern American diets (5,6), and argue that, owing to the nature of those diets and the effects of aging, many otherwise healthy adults suffer chronically from a state of progressively worsening, pathogenically significant,
low-grade hyperchloremic metabolic acidosis (7-10). We argue also that the same individuals suffer chronically from the absence of a low-grade diet-induced potassium-replete metabolic alkalosis for which natural selection has genetically adapted them but for which the modern diet does not nutritionally enable (11,12). In due course will emerge a redefinition of ‘‘metabolic acidosis’’ and ‘‘metabolic alkalosis.’’
