Because of their alkalinity they help to balance our pH. A slightly alkaline body = good, an acidic body = not good.
Not exact matches
Having the correct pH (pH is a measure
of acidity and
alkalinity like Celsius and Fahrenheit are a measure
of temperature) in our bodies is crucial to strong health
because our cells, hormones, mitochondria and just about everything in our bodies work much more efficiently in the right conditions
Alkalinity is also potentially a problem
because it is antibacterial, so it could potentially disrupt the balance
of your body's beneficial bacteria.16
Intuitively, it might be expected that the precipitation
of calcium carbonate would decrease solution pCO2 and dissolution
of calcium carbonate would increase pCO2
because total dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations and total
alkalinity (TA) change in this manner.
They have to be quick to react,
because different masses
of water are often very different in salinity, pH, DIC, and
alkalinity... if the ocean creatures couldn't adapt very quickly to the shock
of some storm - or current - driven new water mass coming through the area where they live, they'd have gone extinct millennia ago.