Your Body's Urine pH

Give your kidneys some love!

Testing your urine pH (and saliva pH for that matter) is quite quick and easy.

You'll just need to purchase some inexpensive pH strips and test in the privacy of your own home.

Urine pH readings will be more variable, but with a little understanding you will be able to interpret what your kidneys are trying to tell you.

For an explanation on why your kidneys know what they know about your internal environment, check out this information on body pH balance and kidney functions.

Your kidneys' role in body pH balance

Kideny functions include the unenviable task of eliminating strong acids from your body. The only other organ that does this is the skin, but to a much lesser extent.

Unfortunately, the kidneys cannot speed up elimination to compensate for an overly acidic body.

The strong acids they process can be seriously corrosive.  The kidneys must dilute these strong substances quite a bit. Otherwise, the kidneys themselves become damaged.

A simple way to help these overworked organs is by drinking lots of pure water everyday.

Your urine pH readings

For directions on how to test your urine, go to pH strips.

After you've tested, come back here to see what your results mean.

Healthy urine pH should fall between 6.5 and 7.25.

This means that your body has plenty of alkalizing mineral reserves and it is processing acids effectively.

If your pH reads 6.25 or 6.5, it means that your body is a little overwhelmed with excess acid. This is easily remedied by shifting your diet slightly toward more alkaline foods.

If your pH is 5.75 or 6.0, your body is holding onto a lot more acid than it should. Your mineral reserves are being depleted.

And if your pH registers at 4.0 to 5.5, your body is needing some help. At this stage of acidity you will be exhibiting at least some of the symptoms of low-grade acidosis.

More drastic measures are needed to turn your pH around. Generally speaking, you would need to start consuming a majority of alkaline forming foods and a minority of healthy acid forming foods.  You would eat more strict like this until you start seeing some progress with your pH readings.

For rare alkaline readings

If your urine pH is consistently higher that 7.5, here are some possible reasons.

• You could be at the opposite end of the spectrum called alkalosis. This is rare, though.
  
  Typically, people that are too alkaline are eating a strict vegetarian, vegan, or raw food diet. Shifting the diet toward more healthy acid-forming foods would be in order.
  
  Too alkaline is just as bad as too acidic - it is just much more rare.
• You could be suffering from a glandular problem. This is even more rare than the first reason and more than likely you would already be aware of the condition.
• This is the most common cause. Your body is so acidic that your kidneys are producing ammonia in an effort to neutralize the toxic acids. 
  
  If this is your situation, you should try to locate a reputable doctor familiar with alternative medicine that can get you back on track.

The bottom line

Remember that healthy urine should read between 6.5 and 7.25 on the pH scale.

If your urine pH reading is at 5.5, that is ten times more acidic than 6.5. And at 4.5 your urine is 100 times more acidic than 6.5.

So don't make the mistake of thinking that your pH is "just a little off."

Listen to what your kidneys are trying to tell you!

And help them out - they are one of the most overworked organs (if not THE most overworked) in our bodies. Make their jobs a little easier by bringing your body back to balance. Your health will benefit tremendously from it.

However, please don't stress about an acidic reading.  Too much stress if incredibly bad for you too.  Just work on eating lots of fresh veggies with your meals. 

If you need more help, or really hate veggies (What?! Who said that? Blasphemy!), try these alkaline supplements.