You can lose weight on an alkaline diet. The reason is most likely not your body's pH but what ends up on your plate: this way of eating adds vegetables, fruit and legumes, and cuts back on sugar, white flour, fried food and processed meat. In randomized trials, plant-heavy eating that lowers dietary acid load produced an average loss of about 6 kg in 16 weeks. There is, however, no direct evidence that food changes blood pH or that acid is stored in fat tissue.
In Turkey, the person who has done most to popularize this approach is Dr. Ayşegül Çoruhlu, a Turkish physician, biochemistry specialist and author. Below we first report what she says in her own Turkish-language articles and interviews, and then which parts of those claims are supported by current studies indexed in PubMed. For the basics, such as pH balance, PRAL and the lemon paradox, see our alkaline diet article; here the topic is weight alone.
The first edition of Çoruhlu's book "Alkali Diyet" (The Alkaline Diet) was published in September 2012 by the Turkish publisher Okuyan Us Yayınları; on her own website the book carries the subtitle "Vücudun pH Dengesini Koruma Rehberi" (A Guide to Protecting the Body's pH Balance). The same site also lists her books "Tokuz Ama Açız" (We're Full but Starving), "Kuantum Beslenme" (Quantum Nutrition) and "Sirkadiyen Beslenme" (Circadian Nutrition). The book's promotional text attributes excessive weight gain, and losing muscle instead of fat while slimming, to the body becoming overly acidic. We have not seen the books themselves; the summary below is based on the author's website, the promotional text and her interviews.
One point deserves to be reported fairly. In the same piece Çoruhlu says, “The first goal of nutrition should never be to lose weight” (our translation), and she regards short-term slimming diets as unsustainable. In 2018, the Turkish daily Hürriyet reported that she told a seminar in Antalya that lasting weight loss is not possible without getting rid of the acids that have built up in the body.
The examples in the two columns were compiled from the article "Alkali Beslenme Nedir?" (What Is Alkaline Nutrition?) on Çoruhlu's own website, the Milliyet interview and the Elele piece.
This list does not line up exactly with the measure researchers use. Science calculates a food's acid load with PRAL (potential renal acid load); five nutrients go into the formula: protein and phosphorus raise the load, while potassium, magnesium and calcium lower it. By that calculation, fish and cheese fall on the acid-forming side, yet they sit in the alkaline column of Çoruhlu's list. There is also no term for sugar in the formula; calling a sugary drink "acidic" therefore comes from general health knowledge, not from PRAL. The list is a useful shopping guide, but it is not a pH chart.
This menu is an example put together by Vivelong; it is not a list published by Çoruhlu. It is built on the principles she describes: eating flour-based foods only in the morning, three times as much vegetables as meat, and an early, light dinner.
An early, light dinner has an evidence base of its own; we cover it in our circadian eating article.
The observational data are mixed. A meta-analysis published in Public Health Nutrition in 2019 covered 31 studies and 92,478 people; it found no significant association between dietary acid load and body mass index or waist circumference. A meta-analysis updated in 2024 did find an association, but the difference was small: in the group with the highest PRAL, waist circumference was on average 0.82 cm larger and body mass index 0.30 kg/m² higher. In a meta-analysis published in Nutrition Reviews in 2025, covering 1,014,081 people across 118 observational studies, the finding with the highest level of evidence concerned not weight but the risk of type 2 diabetes. The authors explicitly note that the data are observational and that some of the associations remain weak.
A caution from 2026. In an analysis of Italy's INVITA survey published in July 2026, acid load fell step by step from meat eaters to vegans. PRAL, however, showed no consistent association with body mass index. The measure that did show an association was NEAP, but the NEAP formula already contains the person's height and weight. For that reason the authors say the finding may partly be a mathematical artifact.
The randomized evidence is more interesting. In a crossover trial published by Hana Kahleova and colleagues in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2025, 62 overweight adults followed a Mediterranean diet and a low-fat vegan diet for 16 weeks each. PRAL fell by 25.8 mEq per day in the vegan phase and did not change in the Mediterranean phase. Weight followed the same path: an average loss of 6.0 kg on the vegan diet and no change on the Mediterranean diet. The more acid load fell, the more weight came off (r = +0.34 in the first period, +0.59 in the second). In the same team's earlier trial of 244 people, the vegan group had lost 6.4 kg in 16 weeks and the control group 0.5 kg.
Three limitations should be kept in mind when reading these results. The analyses are secondary, meaning the trial was not designed to test acid load. The dietary data come from three-day records kept by the participants themselves. After adjustment for energy intake, the association in the first period lost its significance (r = +0.25; p = 0.06). The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, with which the authors are affiliated, is also an organization that advocates plant-based eating. Alongside lowering acid load, a low-fat vegan diet raises fiber and reduces fat and energy density; this design cannot tell which of these takes the weight off. We touch on the effect of fiber in our gut microbiome article.
Blood pH is held tightly within the 7.35–7.45 range. Schwalfenberg's review of the alkaline diet reports that even a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet with a high acid load changes blood pH very little, and that the change shows up in urine chemistry. In other words, your urine pH moves with what you eat; your blood pH does not.
As for the claim that "acid is stored in fat tissue": none of the meta-analyses and randomized trials we reviewed measured this. The possible pathway researchers propose is a different one. Kahleova and colleagues write that a high acid load may affect fat accumulation and insulin sensitivity by increasing the secretion of glucocorticoids (cortisol-like hormones). This is a hypothesis, not a mechanism that has been tested directly in humans.
For alkaline water the picture is clearer. According to a review published in Frontiers in Medicine in 2026, the most consistent finding concerns reflux symptoms; the evidence for metabolic benefit is inconsistent and rests mostly on small or preclinical studies. The authors conclude that alkaline water should not be routinely recommended. We found no clinical trial showing that alkaline water leads to weight loss.
For the bigger picture, see our longevity nutrition guide.
You can, because this way of eating adds vegetables, fruit and legumes while cutting sugar, white flour and processed food. In a randomized crossover trial published in 2025, 62 overweight adults lost an average of 6.0 kg in 16 weeks on a low-fat vegan diet that markedly lowered dietary acid load. Even so, the weight loss has not been shown to come from pH; more fiber, lower energy density and less processed food are stronger explanations.
In a 2013 interview with the Turkish daily Milliyet, Çoruhlu recommended that people who want to lose weight get 80% of what they eat from alkaline-forming foods and 20% from acid-forming foods. In a 2015 piece in the Turkish magazine Elele, she said that if you eat meat you should eat three times as much vegetables. These are her recommendations; we found no clinical trial testing the effect of these ratios on weight loss.
This is an explanation that appears in Çoruhlu's writing, but none of the meta-analyses and randomized trials we reviewed measured acid being stored in fat tissue. The possible pathway put forward by researchers is different: a high acid load is thought to affect fat accumulation by increasing the secretion of cortisol-like hormones. That, too, is still a hypothesis.
We found no evidence for this. A review published in Frontiers in Medicine in 2026 reports that the benefits of alkaline water are limited, that the most consistent finding concerns reflux symptoms, and that the evidence for metabolic benefit remains inconsistent. The same review concludes that alkaline water should not be routinely recommended.
People with chronic kidney disease come first. When the kidneys cannot remove enough potassium from the blood, suddenly increasing vegetables and fruit can raise blood potassium, which can lead to heart and muscle problems. Because adding baking soda to water increases sodium intake, people with high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney disease, as well as pregnant women, should also consult their doctor first.
"Çoruhlu's plate can work: more vegetables, less sugar and processed food. What is debatable is not the plate but the explanation. The weight most likely comes off not because of pH, but because what you eat has changed."
— Vivelong Longevity Science Team