Not along with antacids, but instead of antacids.
Sort of like pouring a cup of hot coffee into one of the 198F springs at Yellowstone and expecting you’ll then be able to bathe in it.
The claim that you can reduce stomach acid by ingesting more acid is baseless.
I’m pretty neutral on it, myself.
I realize these are jokes, but the claim isn’t that you can reduce stomach acid immediately by ingesting acid (well, the non-woo claim). It’s that over time, by ingesting, specifically, lemons and limes, you are better able to maintain body systems that operate at a pH of 7+. IIRC, there is solid basis (resisting pun) for that. There’s something in those two fruits, but not other highly acidic fruits, including other citrus fruits, that contains something necessary for producing the alkali solution in your gut.
I’m going on memory, and may have that slightly wrong, but I’m pretty certain that 1) the claim is only for lemons and limes, and 2) has nothing to do with affecting your stomach acid. I might be wrong about it affecting you gut health, but the two fruits help somehow with maintaining pH balance at some point in something that has a pH of 7+. It’s got to do with other properties of the fruit, obviously, and not the ascorbic acid content. It even may be you have to eat the whole fruit (well, not the peel, but at least the pulp), and not simply strained juice.
Just wanted to make that clear. I read that in reliable sources. One place, again, IIRC, was an article on the website Quackwatch, that was specifically debunking the “eating alkali foods [which is to say, foods that as they sit on the table, would turn litmus paper blue] reduces acid in your body” myth. It pointed out that pretty much, your stomach acid is SO acidic, there’s no way to alter it; moreover, things you eat that are basic or acidic are, based on that property alone, unpredictable in their ultimate effect on metabolism, the well-worn example being that lemons help maintain the high pH of some systems. I’m pretty sure I saw the information repeated in an article in JAMA.
Eating citrus fruit is a poor way to help your acid reflux. Here, the problem is often acid getting back into the esophagus. Normally, when you eat, food goes into the proper tube, which fires sequentially to squeeze food downward. The lower esophageal sphincter needs to relax, and allow food into the stomach. The stomach contains strong acid, produced by chief cells. So once the food is in the stomach, you want the sphincter to remain tightly closed.
Citric acid is acidic, but much less so than stomach acid. Although relatively alkaline, there is too little citric acid to make any difference to the acidity of the stomach. Effective remedies include neutralizing acid, causing less acid production by blocking histamine H2 channels, or inhibiting the proton pump at the level of acid production. It may also include treating bacteria, cutting nerves, helping the sphincter work properly, or avoiding things which make the problem worse - caffeine, certain foods, spices, lying down or other non-vertical positions, smoking, whatever.
Blood acidity is controlled by both the kidneys and stomach. The renal load was discussed, but breathing fast also helps rid the body of acidic CO2. Because blood pH is tightly monitored and controlled by the medulla, if something changed this, the body would try to compensate to keep the level 7.35-7.45 when possible. Other changes in the lung or elsewhere would likely mitigate the small effect citrate may have on the kidneys. So lemons would not likely help blood pH either.
One thing that just occurred to me-- if you get lactic acidosis from over-exertion, with no underlying disease, in addition to simply resting, the best thing to do is hydrate, and the best thing to drink is plain water, but some people find plain water unpalatable unless they are very thirsty. If you find lemonade more palatable, and can drink a higher volume much faster than you can drink plain water, it would help with lactic acidosis more than plain water. Plus, lemonade will have some sodium and potassium, which is helpful, and so can be the sugar in it-- albeit, drinking a low-sugar lemonade would be even better for you.
The acid content wouldn’t be very high, and would be irrelevant to the lactic acid your kidneys (with the help of your liver, if there’s enough of it) are trying to get out of your muscles, because by the time the liquid got to where it needs to be to help you serum volume (it doesn’t increase your red cells, but it increases the volume of your blood by adding some fluid to it, and gives your kidneys some liquid to dump waste into), it has been neutralized by the digestion process.
It’s way, way less acidic than your stomach acid, and at any rate, would be neutralized in your intestines.
My post contains a silly typing error: blood acidity is controlled by the kidneys and the respiratory system.
It’s been years since I played with the SCA, but back then the waterbearers serving at wars (medieval recreations) carried both water and half-strength lemon Gatorade. The idea was that if the watered down Gatorade tasted fully sweet, you needed more of the Gatorade to replenish electrolytes. If it tasted like watered down Gatorade, you could switch to water.
By the liver, as well, but mostly as a back-up.
That sounds a little ULish, although I think I get the idea behind it. When I was in my 20s and early 30s, I rode a bike everywhere, all weather, which meant so very hot days. I owned a car, but I pretty much used it only if I had to shlep something.
I usually carried both water and sports drinks, and I know that on days when I really sweated, either because it was really hot, or I’d put in more miles than usual, I could drink and drink water and still feel thirsty, but a sports drink would make me feel better-- and also, at those times, the sports drinks tasted pretty good. At other times, I thought they tasted pretty awful. I think it was mostly a conditioned response, though-- if I knew it would make me feel better (I felt rested, and “perked up” after a sports drink, which I didn’t after plain water), it had the illusion of tasting better.
I could totally believe that. The fighters could definitely have become conditioned to feel when they needed electrolytes. They definitely said that the half-strength stuff tasted bad if they didn’t need it.
You can definitely get acid rebound half an hour after consuming a handful of tums. I’m quite certain of this. Is it “clinically significant”? I dunno, but it’s uncomfortable.
Also, I’ve read studies of antacids where they measured the pH of the stomach continually. The pH rose noticably after each meal. (Became less acidic.) This was a short-term effect of diluting the stomach acid with bunches of food. The pH rebounds to normal levels fairly quickly, but yes, you certainly can change the pH of your stomach contents by putting stuff into your stomach. Ordinary stuff, like a meal, or basic stuff, like tums.
That was the point I was trying to make.