Talk:Citric acid

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[edit] HCA and Citric acid?

As a person interested in Nutrition I have heard that citric acid has some effect on lactose (or something) and therefore helps people feel rejuvenated after a long day....such as by squeezing and drinking the juice of 6 lemons, as one nutritionist recently mentioned here in Japan.

Is there a resource to find out about such claims.

Also, many commercial products marketed for obesity contain something called Hydroxy Citric Acid (HCA) which, as far as I can tell, is NOT the same as citric acid. The reason I ask is that soources such as Nutrition Action Healthleter say there is some fear of toxidity in animals, though not shown in people. Can someone comment on the relationship, if any, between HCA and Citric acid.

Thanks

Paul ARENSON

paul@arenson.org (not sure if I can find my way back here.....)

You may want to pose your question on Wikipedia:Reference desk. Dysprosia 11:46, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If you add a tag to the end of the properties table where is should be, it gets rendered in the HTML as & lt;/table& gt; so it displays "" when you visit the page if it's there. It is probably related to the odd placement of the following text paragraph in some browsers (like IE). HTML problem, or MediaWiki bug? Niteowlneils 05:43, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I added the table, and so it was my markup that created the bug, and although I looked at things that might be wrong for an hour or so, I didn't find the source of the problem. I created the table from a copy-and-paste job from another page acetic acid, I think, where it worked fine, but I did some heavy customization on the table, and I may have messed something up in the process. Ideally, I'd have a spreadsheet macro to generate the html from spreadsheet contents. Shimmin 10 Mar 2004
Yeah, I saw that. I also looked at the HTML for a while, including putting it thru the w3.org validator. It found 3 errors, but correcting the seemingly most pertinent one didn't solve the problem. The version of the table at boric acid also renders correctly. It isn't really a big deal for this particular article, but since it may be evidence of a MediaWiki bug, I have enlisted the help of user_talk:bcorr, since I am not an HTML expert, and have only been a Wikipedian for a week or so.

[edit] Citric Acid is also a chelate in plants

Maybe that needs a sentence or two...

[edit] Addiction

An anonymous user (220.237.100.224) claimed that citric acid can be addictive. I removed that claim because I could find no evidence to support the claim on Google Scholar or on the web. It is, however, used to solubilize heroin before use, and is supplied in sachets to drug users in some enlightened countries. --Slashme 06:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Info boxes

Is there any reason there are two infoboxes? It doesn't help that half of the information is duplicated (e.g. pKa values). IMacWin95 03:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Systematic Name

The name in the info box doesn't seem to represent the molecule's structure; the longest carbon chain is 5 atoms, so the IUPAC name should have a root of pentan- ? Also, I was taught that multiple carboxylic acid groups should be labelled 1,3,5-trioic acid, for example. 82.13.150.91 23:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the name in the box is the correct IUPAC name, but it is one correct name for citric acid. -carboxylic acid means there's an extra carbon on it. For example, succinic acid could be called butanedioic acid or ethane-1,2-dicarboxylic acid. —Keenan Pepper 15:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spectral Data Box

Is there really much point having the spectral data box, when UV/Vis, IR, NMR etc link to the wiki page for each of those types of spectra? Presumably it is only really of use if the links linked to the corresponding spectrum for the compound. Of course, I am not aware of a wikispectra site (what a good idea though), but NIST has spectra online for many compounds. tomohawk 10:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does Citric Acid cause Cancer???

As a kid in Spain, my father appeared one day with a list of additives by a "reputable" french hospital specializing in cancer research, that said that E330, citric acid, was the most cancerigenous of all!!!

As a kid this was a total pain as for a while everything that was bought in our house had their additives checked against this list. Today I have researched the matter through internet and to my surprise, it appears the list was false and that citric acid is indeed one of the safest additives.

The list I refer to has been referred as "The VILLEJUIF Hospital list" and it seems to be a clear example of bad press against citric acid. So far I have found 2 pages that expose this list, though they are in Spanish.

Please note that if my father 2500km away from the place managed to get his hands on it and torment my life, it shows that it has had wide social repercusion, atleast in Europe. This was further exacerbated when gradually some product labelling started to call additives by their chemical names instead of their corresponding code, i.e. they would say Citric Acid, instead of E330, and this was taken as definite proof by my parents that the list was right.

I would appreciate if we could find suitable references that definitely disprove the claims of said list and post it on the article so that young impresionable children in the future can drink their soft drinks and eat sweets in peace.Cgonzalezdelhoyo 10:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the hospital made repeated claims that the list was not published by them. However even nowadays there are publications that make reference to such a list, though not as published by the Hospital, but rather as anecdotal reference of its presence in popular culture.

Cgonzalezdelhoyo, it's a good thing I've passed by the talk page before editing the article, since this is exactly what I was about to add. You'd be surprised to know that I had the same list hanging on our kitchen cupboard door here in Israel (and yes, it was in Hebrew!).
The site that I found then with a decent explanation still exists (www.ukfoodguide.net) and it seems there isn't any copyright limitation, so I'll go ahead and quote that into the article. Guycarmeli 00:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are there any differences between natural and industrial citric acid???

Some people have told me that industrial processes produce 2 "flavours" of citric acid, one of which is the natural ocurring compound but not the second.Cgonzalezdelhoyo 10:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Citric acid is achiral. Maybe you were thinking of lactic acid or tartaric acid? —Keenan Pepper 00:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why is it important to inform the religion of the discoverer of the Citric acid in the Citric acid article?

Maybe there's some reason, and I don't know about it. Anyway, if there is indeed a good reason, it must be better explained in the article. If no one points out the reason, this information must be deleted because the religion of scientists has nothing to do with their scientific achievements A.Z. 09:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Toxic?

I ate the Acid (crystalised), is it dangerous?

Wikipedia is probably not the best place to ask for medical advice, for so many reasons! A quick look at an Oxford MSDS for citric acid revealed the following:
Toxicology
Severe eye irritant. Skin and respiratory irritant. Prolonged or repeated exposure may cause allergic reaction in some individuals.
If you ate some citric acid in crystalline form from a laboratory, it may have been contaminated with other, more poisonous compounds. The best thing to do would be to seek medical advice immediately, for example by phoning your doctor or going to the nearest hospital Emergency Department.
Hopefully you'll be OK.
Ben 16:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Softener regenerator vs cleaner

Saying that citric acid is used to regenerate the resin in water softeners is somewhat misleading, since regeneration usually means converting the resin back to the sodium form. Perhaps it's more appropriate to say that citric acid is used for cleaning.

[edit] Citric acid plus Metal

Just a quik question does anyone know what would happen were magnesium to react with citric acid?

<<pls insert eqaution here>>


Similar thing that happen with any other acid plus metal I imagine. Magnesium + Citric Acid → Magnesium Citrate + Hydrogen 82.10.65.30 22:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citric acid on skin?

I know that Citric Acid allows the sun to penetrate hair because Citric Acid opens the cuticle; However, in looking at the effects when putting it on skin, it seems to be damaging. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the cause is. An explaination for dummies would be better than a diagram, I'm only a Cosmotology student after all!  :D

[edit] molecular formula vs empirical formula

C6H8O7 is the empirical formula for 2-hydroxy-1,2,3-carboxylpropane It would be better to use CH4OH(COOH)3 or CH5O(CO2H)3 Andreyvul 16:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

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