Acidosis – Part 2

Self causing Acidosis

The reason acidosis is more common in our society is mostly due to the typical Western diet (now considered the â€˜Developed countries dietâ€™), which is far too high in acid-producing animal products like meat, eggs and dairy, and far too low in alkaline-producing foods like fresh vegetables. Furthermore, we eat acid-producing processed foods like white flour, sugar and drink acid-producing beverages like coffee and soft drinks.

We use too many drugs, which are acid-forming; and we use artificial chemical sweeteners which are extremely acid-forming. Additionally, the environmental exposure to solvents, herbicides, pesticides and other chemical toxins boost our tendency to become acidic. In this state, the body is deprived of oxygen that will cause a person to be more susceptible to colds, flu and other diseases/infections. When the body reaches limits of increasing toxins within the body, many health problems will eventually occur. One of the best things we can do to correct an overly-acid body is to clean up the diet and lifestyle.

When people who suffer from an unbalanced pH, it usually is because they are too acidic. This acidic state forces the body to borrow minerals including calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium, from vital organs and bones to neutralize the acid and safely removes it from the body. Because of this strain, the body can suffer severe and prolonged damage due to the high acidity. This state is usually undetected for years and most of the time, not detected at all.

As our biological terrain becomes acidic, our pH level drops. When this happens we start losing calcium out of the blood, the bones, and the tissues. This is a safety mechanism. Now your biological terrain’s oxygen level drops leaving you tired and fatigued, allowing fungus, mold, parasites, bad bacteria, and viral infections to flourish and gain a hold throughout the body. It is interesting to note that you often won’t have just some of these invaders. If you have Candida you will likely have bad bacteria, fungus, and parasites because they all flourish in the same terrain.

Consequences of acidosis

Premature aging.
Hormonal problem, one of the leading cause of acne.
Headaches.
Hair looks dull, has split ends, and falls out.
Leg cramps and spasms.
Tendency to get infections.
Acceleration of free radical damage, possibly contributing to cancerous mutations.
Cardiovascular damage, including the constriction of blood vessels and the reduction of oxygen.
Depressive tendencies and easily stressed.
Weight gain, obesity and diabetes.
Bladder and kidney conditions, including kidney stones.
Dry skin.
Immune deficiency.
Osteoporosis; weak, brittle bones, hip fractures and bone spurs.
Joint pain, aching muscles and lactic acid buildup.
Low energy and chronic fatigue.
Slow digestion and elimination.
Loss of drive, joy, and enthusiasm.
Excess stomach acid.
Skin easily irritated.

Frequent Diseases and their Connection to Acidity

Diabetes

When acidic wastes accumulate in the pancreas, diabetes can develop due to lack of insulin in the body. Doctors say that symptoms of diabetes appear mainly in people above 40, with no symptoms of diabetes in their 20s. How do they differ from each other?
In general, the quantity of accumulated acidic wastes after the age of 40 is far more than those in their 20s, especially in the pancreas. Nevertheless, we may help avoid the onset of diabetes if we flush out the acidic waste in our bodies by drinking plenty of healthy water.

Cancer

While the normal cells of the human body degenerate, and acidic wastes accumulate, cancer will make a genetic transformation and keep propagating itself in order to survive in such acidic surroundings.
There have been two theories on the basic causes of cancer. One is the oxygen deficiency theory by a German biochemist, Dr. Warback. The other is the theory of acidic cells, by a Japanese doctor, Dr. Airashi.
Dr. Warback discovered that if oxygen is removed from a health cell, the cell will start to turn cancerous.
Dr. Warback won the Nobel prize by proving this theory through his many experiments.
Dr. Airashi showed that cells that survive in acidic environments will eventually develop cancerous characteristics.
Even though cancer cells are eliminated entirely through an operation, they reoccur because the acidic surroundings still remain after the operation. Cancer cannot exist in an alkaline environment. So, to help prevent this, we should stop the development of acidosis by having a healthy diet, avoiding stress, living in a healthy environment and exercising.

Degenerative diseases

Including cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, kidney and gall stones, and tooth decay are associated with excess acidity in the body. While the body does have a homeostatic mechanism which maintains a constant pH 7.4 in the blood, this mechanism works by depositing and withdrawing acid and alkaline minerals from other locations including the bones, soft tissues, body fluids and saliva.
Therefore, the pH of these other tissues can fluctuate greatly. The pH of saliva offers us a window through which we can see the overall pH balance in our bodies.

Kidney Ailment and Kidney Stone

One of the major functions of an alkaline diet is to neutralize or help remove the wastes in the body. The accumulation of excessive wastes in the kidneys weakens the kidneys. When cells survive in an excessive acidic environment, swelling of the kidneys occurs.
In order to remain healthy, cells should expel all the waste produced by them. But if the blood becomes more acidic them the waste will cling to the walls of cells, causing solidification of acidic fluoride in the kidneys and kidney stones.

Obesity

The intelligence in the human body sets up defense mechanisms, as we become more and more acidic. To keep the damaging acid from entering our vital organs, it is known that acid gets stored in fat cells. After all, if the acid does come into contact with an organ the acid has a chance to eat holes in the tissue. This may cause the cells to mutate. The oxygen level drops in this acidic environment and calcium begins to be depleted.
So as a defense mechanism, your body may actually make fat to protect you from your overly-acidic self. Those fat cells and cellulite deposits may actually be packing up the acid and trying to keep it a safe distance from your organs. The fat may be saving your vital organs from damage. Many people have found that a return to a healthy inner biological terrain helps them to lose excess fat.

Hypertension

Hypertension is a common illness that occurs due to three reasons.
1) Hypertension caused by clogged capillary vessels due to physical reasons.
2) Narrowed blood vessels caused by acidic wastes.
Thus, blood pressure has to be higher naturally in order to supply sufficient quantities of blood through the narrow vessels.
3) Lack of oxygen due to chemical reasons, namely solidified acidic waste in the vessels.
Hypotension
Hypotension can occur as the heart muscles deteriorate due to a lack of calcium ions, caused by acidic waste.
A patient with hypotension may regain his health by drinking healthy mineralized water. This is because calcium ions in alkaline water can help to restore the heart’s activities when caused by a lack of calcium ions.

Osteoporosis and Gout

Human bones function as a calcium bank for the body. A combination of calcium and phosphorus, bones stay healthy as long as there are adequate amounts of these two substances present. To neutralize excessive quantities of waste or acidity, the body starts to deprive the bones of calcium, which may be harmful to the body. Symptoms of calcium deficiency are not evident through X-ray examinations and are only visible when 30-40% of the calcium in the bone has already been depleted.
Gout happens when calcium accumulates in the capillary blood vessels of the hands and legs. Normally, gout occurs in toe joints, knee joints, and finger joints.

Testing your own alkalinity

It may be very useful for you to see where you are now, and to test your acid/alkaline balance at various stages during your transition to an alkaline diet. pH strips for measuring acid/alkaline balance should belong in every family medicine cabinet.

Acidosis – Part 1

Age contributing factor

Modern science has revealed that the cause of aging may be far simpler than previously thought.
The wastes produced from food are highly acidic and acidosis is one of the main contributors that lead to the aging process and various illnesses. Acid waste is excreted from the human body in the form of urine or sweat. But the wastes that are not excreted will be circulating around in the blood, organs and all over the body. This acidic waste will progressively accumulate somewhere in our capillaries, blood vessels and eventually clog them up. Also as a consequence of this, the cells of the human body will be deprived of their supply of oxygen and essential nutrients, rendering these cells inoperative in reproduction and maintenance. That’s the main reason why people age. Furthermore, with the blood vessels clogged up, the function of every organ in the human body accumulating acidic waste will begin to deteriorate, causing serious illnesses in the long run.

Acid/Alkaline balance

Acidosis is over acidity in the body which can and will become a hazardous state that weakens all body systems. This is extremely widespread in many countries and cultures today, without any of the people’s knowledge yet alone their concern about it. It gives rise to an internal environment making it advantageous to disease, as opposed to a neutral pH environment which allows normal body function necessary for the body to resist disease. A healthy body needs to maintain adequate alkaline reserves to meet emergency demands when excess acids (acidosis) must be neutralized. When our alkaline reserves are depleted it leaves the body in a weakened and vulnerable condition.

The concept of acidosis as the cause of disease is not new. In 1933 a New York doctor named William Howard Hay published a ground-breaking book, A New Health Era in which he maintains that all disease is caused by autotoxication (or “self-poisoning”) due to acid accumulation in the body:
Now we depart from health in just the proportion to which we have allowed our alkalies to be dissipated by introduction of acid-forming food in too great amount… It may seem strange to say that all disease is the same thing, no matter what its myriad modes of expression, but it is verily so. William Howard Hay, M.D.

But the understanding of this is actually known more than 2000 years ago by Taoist medicinal practices. Traditional Taoists categorizes foods according to their bio-energetic nature. Like all energies, food energies are polar and therefore they are categorized primarily in terms of yin and yang. Yang foods are acid-forming and impart acidity to the bloodstream and cellular fluids, while yin foods are alkalizing to bodily fluids and tissues.

This is the effect that foods have on the body’s pH balance, not their own intrinsic pH values. Example is citrus fruits. They are acidic but usually make the urine alkaline after being metabolized by the body.

Every day we battle against molds, yeasts, bacteria, viruses and fungi. By using antibiotics as the first line of defense we have encouraged the development of more powerful deadly germs and bacteria. Our immune systems are becoming weaker and over-taxed in this battle. Louis Pasteur declared the germ theory of disease that states germs are the cause of disease. But note Dr. Pasteur’s dying words: “The germ is nothing, the inner terrain is everything”.

Initial phase of age-contributing acidic waste

An unborn child lives on nutrients from his mother while in the womb and the body of the baby becomes alkaline, owing to the consumption of alkaline minerals.
Naturally, this is due to the release of alkaline minerals from the mother. This release of alkaline minerals during pregnancy does temporarily weaken the mother’s body, causing a lack of appetite etc. The baby will remain alkaline while breast feeding, but will begin to reduce in alkalinity once put on infant cereals and when it is ready for solid food consumption acidity increases dramatically.

If the cause of aging lies in acidosis, then the answer to longer life must lie in remove such acidic wastes. For this reason, to neutralize acidic-forming meals, alkaline water could be the answer. Many doctors recommend a vegetarian or low meat diet as alkaline minerals and vegetables help neutralize acidic waste. But vegetables only contain a very small amount of alkaline minerals and that is why a very large quantity of vegetables needs to be consumed in order to neutralize these wastes in the body.

Cellular level

We function at the cellular level. All the billions of cells that make up our human body are slightly alkaline, and must maintain alkalinity in order to perform, remain healthy and alive. As each alkaline cell performs its task of respiration, it secretes metabolic wastes, and these end products of cellular metabolism are acid in nature.
Although these wastes are used for energy and function, they must not be permitted to build up. One example of this is the often painful lactic acid which is created through strenuous exercise. The body will go to great lengths to neutralize and detoxify these acids before they act as poisons in and around the cell, ultimately changing the environment of the cell. Most people and clinical practitioners consider the immune system is the body’s first line of defense, but in actual truth it is not. It is important thought, but it’s more considered like a very advanced clean-up service. We must instead look at the importance of pH balance as the first and major line of defense against sickness and disease and for health and vitality.
The question to what is killing us, the answer may possibly lie in ACIDOSIS. It has been demonstrated that an acidic, anaerobic (lacking oxygen) body environment encourages the breeding of fungus, mold, bacteria, and viruses. Let’s take the analogy that if we were to seal the door to our freezer and then unplug it, come back and open the door in two weeks, what would we find? Mold and all sorts of microbes would be growing and multiplying. Where did they all come from? They did not sneak in. remember the door was sealed. The answer is . . . they were always there.
It is simply that the environment changed to a more favorable and healthy one for these germs to live in. This can be equated to a change in our biological terrain from a healthy oxygenated, alkaline environment to an unhealthy anaerobic acidic environment. You see what is healthy for us is unhealthy for the body attackers and what is healthy for them is what is unhealthy for our body.

pH

pH (potential/power of hydrogen) is a gauge of the acidity/alkalinity of a solution. It is measured on a scale of 0 to 14 – the lower the pH the more acidic the solution, the higher the pH the more alkaline (or base) the solution. When a solution is neither acidic nor alkaline it has a pH of 7 which is neutral.

Water is the most abundant compound in the human body, comprising 70-75% of the body. The body has an acid-alkaline (or acid-base) ratio called the pH which is a balance between positively charges ions (acid-forming) and negatively charged ions (alkaline-forming.) The body constantly strives to balance pH. When this balance is compromised many problems can occur.

It is important to understand that we are not talking about stomach acid or the pH of the stomach. We are talking about the pH of the body’s fluids and tissues which is an entirely different matter.

Testing Your Body’s Acidity or Alkalinity with pH Strips

It is recommended that you test your pH levels to determine if your body’s pH needs immediate attention. By using pH test strips, you can determine your pH factor quickly and easily in the privacy of your own home. There is much to discover so that pH test result can be meaningful.

Saliva pH

The results of saliva testing indicate the activity of digestive enzymes in your body, especially the activity of the liver and stomach. This reveals the flow of enzymes running through your body and shows their effect on all the body systems. First, you must wait at least 2 hours after eating. Fill your mouth with saliva and then swallow it. Repeat this step to help ensure that your saliva is clean. Then the third time, put some of your saliva onto the pH paper.

Urine pH

The pH of the urine indicates how well your body is assimilating minerals, especially calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. The urine reveals the alkaline building (anabolic) and acid tearing down (catabolic) cycles. The pH of urine indicates the efforts of the body via the kidneys, adrenals, lungs and gonads to regulate body pH balance through the buffer salts and hormones. Urine can provide a fairly accurate picture of body chemistry, because the kidneys filter out the buffer salts of pH regulation and provide values based on what the body is eliminating. Urine pH can vary from around 4.5 to 9.0 for its extremes, but the ideal range is 6.5 to 7.0+. Urinary pH tends to be lower in the morning and higher in the evening.
The pH of the urine can vary widely. The pH of urine is also affected by the biochemicals that the body is eliminating. These include biochemicals such as excess minerals, vitamins, and products of metabolism and also include drugs and toxins being eliminated by the body. The pH of the urine is not as affected by digestive enzymes as salivary pH. However, the pH of the urine can be affected by:

preservatives you eat
pollutants you breathe
stress you encounter
the food you eat
how much water you drink
the amount of pathogens in your system
how much rest you receive
all the biochemical activities going on in your body

It is suggested to keep a log of both salvia/urine pH tests for both morning and evening.

Keeping the Balance Right for Excellent Health

The human body is capable in absorbing minerals and nutrients properly only when its pH is balanced. So it is possible for you to be taking healthy nutrients and yet be unable to absorb or use them. If you are not getting the results you expected from your nutritional or herbal program, look for an acid/alkaline imbalance. Even the right herbal program may not work if your body is struggling with acidosis. A state of acidosis is simply the lack of oxygen and available calcium which the body uses to maintain its alkaline balance. Calcium makes up 1.6% of our body weight and is considered the human glue that holds the body together. Calcium is so biochemically active that it has been likened to an octopus. A calcium ion can hold onto seven other molecules while it grabs onto one molecule of water. No other ion can do this. And it is the right size to easily get in and out of the human cell. As it does this, it takes a chain of nutrients into the cell and then leaves to get more nutrients.

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