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Draft:Acidemia

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  • Comment: The acidosis article also describes acidemia to a reasonable degree; it's possible that some information from this could be added to that article, but due to the large amount of overlap between this and the current acidosis article I'm not seeing enough reason for a new, separate article right now. LittlePuppers (talk) 01:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Acidemia is a term used for the state of blood or serum with a pH below normal.  pH is frequently given as a range of 7.35 to 7.45 indicating that there is some variation around the mean normal value of 7.4. Conversely, alkalemia is a state of blood pH above normal. The use of acidosis or alkalosis as a reference to blood pH instead of acidemia or alkalemia is used extensively but not properly. This is long standing tradition but confusion will sometimes arise when this is done. To address this problem, acidemia as a concept as distinguished from acidosis began appearing in the medical literature in the late 1990s.[1][2] In some circumstances it is necessary to use unambiguous terminology to communicate the situation correctly. To avoid confusion, the term acidosis should not be used without a modifier, either metabolic or respiratory. Similarly alkalosis is either metabolic or respiratory. Nevertheless it in very common use to use the term acidosis or alkalosis by itself and expect that the listener will understand from the context what is meant.

The terms acidic and basic are also best avoided when discussing acid base physiology. Acidic is a general chemistry term that mean a pH below 7.0.  The suffix -emia comes from the Greek meaning blood. Acidemia specifically refers to blood, or sometimes body fluids. With blood the reference for pH is 7.4, not 7.0. The is the normal value at sea level. Similarly, basic is a general chemistry term.

  1. ^ Adrogué, Horacio J.; Madias, Nicolaos E. (January 1998). "Management of Life-Threatening Acid–Base Disorders". New England Journal of Medicine. 338 (1): 26–34. doi:10.1056/NEJM199801013380106. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 9414329.
  2. ^ Jung, Boris; Rimmele, Thomas; Le Goff, Charlotte; Chanques, Gérald; Corne, Philippe; Jonquet, Olivier; Muller, Laurent; Lefrant, Jean-Yves; Guervilly, Christophe; Papazian, Laurent; Allaouchiche, Bernard; Jaber, Samir; The AzuRea Group (2011-10-13). "Severe metabolic or mixed acidemia on intensive care unit admission: incidence, prognosis and administration of buffer therapy. a prospective, multiple-center study". Critical Care. 15 (5): R238. doi:10.1186/cc10487. ISSN 1364-8535. PMC 3334789. PMID 21995879.