Acidemia

What it means

An abnormally low blood pH (usually defined as less than 7.35).

When describing acid-base abnormalities, acidosis and alkalosis refer to physiological processes that lower or raise the pH, respectively, while acidemia and alkalemia simply describe the state of an abnormal blood pH. This distinction is important: a patient with acidemia could have both a respiratory and metabolic acidosis as well as a concurrent metabolic alkalosis.

Part of the broader category