Are vegetarians more alkaline than meat eater-a study

Quick answer...yes!
Obviously you can manipulate the results if you get a veggie eating as much higher acid forming foods as possible Vs a limited meat eater who takes extra care to eat as much alkalising food stuffs as possible. It would have been nice to slip in a few vegans see how how difference no dairy made to the mix?...but you can't have everything.
It has been suggested for quite a while that both vegetarians & vegans should have a more alkaline body & here is some actual evidence to back up that theory - hopefully they will do bit more work on this in the coming years.
Here's the abstract of the study:

Quote :

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20054653?dopt=Abstract

Plant Foods Hum Nutr. 2010 Mar;65(1):77-82.
Nutrient based estimation of acid-base balance in vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

Deriemaeker P, Aerenhouts D, Hebbelinck M, Clarys P.

Department of Biometry and Biomechanics, Faculty of Physical Education and Physical Therapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium. peter.deriemaeker@vub.ac.be
Abstract

A first objective of the present study was to estimate the acid-base balance of the food intake in vegetarians and non-vegetarians. A second objective was to evaluate if additional input of specific food items on the existing potential renal acid load (PRAL) list was necessary for the comparison of the two dietary patterns. Thirty vegetarians between the age of 18 and 30 years were matched for sex, age and BMI with 30 non-vegetarians. Based on the 3-days food diaries the acid-base status of the food intake was estimated using the PRAL method. Mean PRAL values as estimated with the standard table yielded an alkaline load of -5.4 +/- 14.4 mEq/d in the vegetarians compared to an acid load of 10.3 +/- 14.4 mEq/d in the nonvegetarians (p<0.001). Mean PRAL values as estimated with the extended table yielded an alkaline load of -10.9 +/-19.7 mEq/d in the vegetarians compared to an acid load of 13.8 +/- 17.1 mEq/d for the non-vegetarians (p<0.001). The findings of this study indicate that vegetarian food intake produces more alkaline outcomes compared to non-vegetarian diets. The use of the standard PRAL table was sufficient for discrimination between the two diets.

Excellent! Thank you for sharing. This goes back to wondering if acidity causes kidney stones and osteoarthritis/osteoporosis/high bone fracture rates.

About that by the way, I heard the head of the school of public health for Harvard on the radio the other day saying that people with a high vitamin A intake such as from liver or cod liver oil have higher such rates despite getting a lot of calcium. (Scandinavians in particular were mentioned.) It's theorized as being related to vitamin A competiting with vitamin D for receptor sites. (Maybe it is, or maybe it's just the acidity actually.)