Health Dictionary
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Alkaline tide
Introduction
Overview
Alkaline Tide refers to a condition, normally encountered after eating a meal, when stomach acid is released into the stomach that causes a temporary increase in pH of the blood. This is a natural bodily function.
Alkaline Tide is caused when CO2 concentration increases in active stomach wall and it gets converted to bicarbonate by carbonic anhydrase which results in an increase in pH – this shift in PH in children causes problem called Alkaline Tide bicarbonate into the bloodstream.
During HCl excretion in the stomach, the gastric parietal cells extract Cl anions, CO2, H2O and Na cations from the blood plasma and in turn release bicarbonate back into the plasma after the HCl acid is formed from CO2 and H2O constituents. This is to maintain the plasma’s electrical balance, as the Cl anions have been extraced. Bicarbonate being alkaline, the venous blood leaving the stomach is more alkaline than the arterial blood being delivered to it.
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]