Effect of Dietary Ascorbic Acid Restriction and Supplementation on Urine pH in Elderly Males
- John M. Trang, PhD
- James Blanchard, PhD;
- Kenneth A. Conrad, MD;
- Gail G. Harrison, PhD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
The efficacy of ascorbic acid (AA) in lowering urine pH in humans has been studied with equivocal results.1-3 The primary clinical application of urinary acidification with AA is as an adjunct to methenamine mandelate therapy in the treatment of urinary tract infections. Doses of AA ranging from 1.5 to 6 g daily have been recommended for this purpose,1 but recent investigations
have indicated that AA (1 g four times daily) is ineffective in lowering urine pH.2,3 The influence of dietary AA restriction on urine pH in the elderly has not been studied. Since many persons now routinely ingest large (eg, 1 to 10 g daily) doses of AA and since urine pH can influence the renal excretion of weak acids and weak bases, we felt that it would be of interest to report the changes in urine pH that we observed during an investigation of
