An article on stomach acid.

[Guest guest]

Stomach Acid

Jon Barron[Received by email]

Something must be going on with stomach acid. We've received over

50 emails in the last 30 days on stomach acid. Yes, we get 10,000

emails a month, but getting 50 on one topic is highly unusual. The

questions on stomach acid were of all kinds mind you, but surprisingly,

not one on what I would consider the most important issue: low stomach

acid.

Anyway, in this newsletter, we'll cover all aspects:

Stomach acid and digestion Too much stomach acid Too little stomach acid Stomach acid and proteolytic enzymes Stomach acid and probiotics

Stomach acid and digestion

Before we can even talk about stomach acid, we need to spend a

little time talking about how it fits in the digestive process. Most

people believe that when you eat a meal it drops into a pool of stomach

acid, where it's broken down, then goes into the small intestine to

have nutrients taken out, and then into the colon to be passed out of

the body -- if you're lucky. Not quite.

What nature intended is that you eat enzyme rich foods and chew

your food properly. If you did that, the food would enter the stomach

laced with digestive enzymes. These enzymes would then "predigest" your

food for about an hour -- actually breaking down as much as 75% of your

meal.

Only after this period of "pre-digestion" are hydrochloric acid and

pepsin introduced. The acid inactivates all of the food-based enzymes,

but begins its own function of breaking down what is left of the meal

in combination with the acid energized enzyme pepsin. Eventually, this

nutrient-rich food concentrate moves on into the small intestine. Once

this concentrate enters the small intestine, the acid is neutralized

and the pancreas reintroduces digestive enzymes to the process. As

digestion is completed, nutrients are passed through the intestinal

wall and into the bloodstream.

That's what nature intended. Unfortunately, most of us don't live our lives as nature intended!

Processing and cooking destroy enzymes in food. (Any sustained heat of approximately 1180 - 1290

F destroys virtually all enzymes.) This means that, for most of us, the

food entering our stomach is severely enzyme deficient. The food then

sits there for an hour, like a heavy lump, with very little

pre-digestion taking place. This forces the body to produce large

amounts of stomach acid in an attempt to overcompensate. In addition to

failing in this attempt (much of the meal still enters the small

intestine largely undigested), there are two major consequences.

Too much stomach acid. Too little stomach acid.

Too much stomach acid

This is obvious. In an attempt to overcompensate for lack of

enzymes in the food, the stomach produces an inordinate amount of

stomach acid to compensate, leading to acid indigestion. Taking

antacids or purple pills doesn't actually solve the problem; it merely

eliminates one of the symptoms. Ultimately, though, it passes even more

quantities of poorly digested food into the intestinal tract where it

leads to gas, bloating, bad digestion, chronic digestive disorders, in

addition to blowing out your pancreas, which tries to compensate by

producing huge amounts of digestive enzymes for use in the small

intestine. All of this is exacerbated by foods and beverages such as

alcohol (especially beer), high sugar foods, and caffeinated foods

(coffee and tea, etc.) that can actually double acid production.

The simple solution for most people with excess stomach acid is to

supplement with digestive enzymes which can digest up to 70% of the

meal in the pre-acid phase, thus eliminating the need for large amounts

of stomach acid and also taking tremendous stress off the digestive

system and the pancreas.

One other factor which may be contributing to the problem is a

hiatal hernia, in which part of the stomach can protrude through the

diaphragm into the chest cavity allowing food and stomach acid to back

up into the esophagus. Combine a hiatal hernia with excess stomach acid

and you have the potential for great distress. The standard treatment

for severe hiatal hernias is laparoscopic surgery -- with mixed

results. Fortunately, there are chiropractic alternatives that can be quite effective.

In either case, dietary changes and supplemental digestive enzymes

are likely to produce significant results, without creating problems

further down the digestive tract.

Drinking 2-4 ounces of organic, stabilized, aloe vera juice every

day can also help soothe irritated tissue in the esophagus and help

balance out digestive juices in the stomach.

Too little stomach acid

Follow the logic here for just a moment.

If you spend years forcing your body to massively overproduce

stomach acid to compensate for the lack of enzymes in your diet, what

do you think the long-term consequences might be in terms of your

ability to produce stomach acid?

Bingo!

Eventually, your body's capacity to produce stomach acid begins to

fade, with a concomitant loss in your body's ability to sufficiently

process food in the stomach. The health consequences can be profound.

Low production of stomach acid is quite common and becomes more

prevalent with age. By age forty, 40% of the population is affected,

and by age sixty, 50%. A person over age 40 who visits a doctor's

office has about a 90% probability of having low stomach acid.

Consequences can include:

Poor digestion. Not only is there insufficient stomach

acid to break down food, there is insufficient acidity to optimize the

digestive enzyme pepsin, which requires a pH of around 2.0. This

results in partial digestion of food, leading to gas, bloating,

belching, diarrhea/constipation, autoimmune disorders, skin diseases,

rheumatoid arthritis, and a host of intestinal disorders such as

Crohn's and IBS. It is estimated that 80% of people with food allergies suffer from some degree of low acid production in the stomach.

Many vitamins and minerals require proper stomach acid in order to be

properly absorbed, including: calcium, iron, vitamin B12, and folic

acid. Vitamin B12 in particular requires sufficient stomach acid for

proper utilization. Without that acid, severe B12 deficiency can

result. (Note: ionic delivery systems can bypass this problem.)

With low acidity and the presence of undigested food, harmful bacteria

are more likely to colonize the stomach and interfere with digestion.

Normal levels of stomach acid help to keep the digestive system free of

harmful bacteria and parasites.

It's worth noting that symptoms of low acidity include:

Bloating, belching, and flatulence immediately after meals. Indigestion, diarrhea, or constipation. Heartburn.

Is it just me, or doesn't this list sound very similar to the symptoms associated with too much

stomach acid? In fact, up to 95% of people who think they are suffering

from too much stomach acid are actually suffering from the exact

opposite condition. The use of antacids and purple pills then become

exactly the wrong treatment to use since they exacerbate the underlying

condition while temporarily masking the symptoms.

Options

Supplementing with digestive enzymes to reduce the need

for stomach acid -- giving the body a chance to rest and recover its

ability to produce sufficient stomach acid. Mix one

teaspoon of apple cider vinegar with water and a little honey and drink

this with each meal. You may gradually increase the vinegar up to 3-4

tablespoons in water if needed. Supplementing with betaine

hydrochloride (HCL) tablets can also help, but anything beyond minimal

doses as found in most health food store supplements should only be

administered under the supervision of a health practitioner to avoid

damage to the stomach lining.

Stomach acid and proteolytic enzymes

As I mentioned at the top of the newsletter, we received a number

of questions on stomach acid in the last 30 days. Most of them had

nothing to do with high or low stomach acid, but rather with the effect

of stomach acid on supplements. In fact, the bulk of the questions we

received were concerned with how stomach acid affects proteolytic

enzymes, and they all pretty much ran along the following lines.

Since enzymes are made from proteins and proteolytic enzyme formulas are taken orally:

How do they survive the digestion of proteins that takes

place in the stomach? Wouldn't they be broken down by stomach acid into

amino acids? If they do make it through the stomach, since they are so large, wouldn't they be unable to pass through the intestinal wall?

Surviving the stomach

Not all proteins (enzymes are proteins)

are broken down by stomach acid. Rather than get technical, let me just

point out pepsin. Pepsin is an enzyme secreted by the stomach to aid in

digesting the proteins in your food. Not only is it NOT broken down by

stomach acid, its optimum pH environment is about 2.0 (very, very acidic). Bottom line:

Although some enzymes such as serapeptase are destroyed by

stomach acid, most are not -- just temporarily rendered inactive.

(Note: that's one of the reasons I do not use serapeptase in my own

proteolytic enzyme formulation.) Different enzymes function differently in different pH environments, which is why I formulated my proteolytic enzyme formula, pHi-Zymes, to function in a wide range of pH's.

Passing through the intestinal wall - absorption

Enzyme absorption absolutely occurs and manifests through two main avenues:

Pinocytosis Peristalsis

Pinocytosis. Enzyme molecules are bound to, and

encapsulated, by other substances such as water. Since they are

encapsulated, the intestinal wall cannot recognize them as enzymes and

thinks they are "water," thus readily passing them through the

intestinal wall. Once the enzymes are in the bloodstream they attach to

lymphocytes and travel easily throughout the vascular and lymphatic

systems.

Peristalsis not only forces food (and enzymes) down through the intestinal tract, it also forces transit through the intestinal wall.

Stomach acid and probiotics

The questions related to probiotics are essentially the same as

those for proteolytic enzymes: aren't they broken down and destroyed by

stomach acid -- thus requiring special, acid-proof capsules? And the

answer, for most probiotics, is absolutely not. (I think this is

primarily a marketing pitch for companies selling probiotics in enteric

coated capsules, but the logic is flawed.)

The reason we're supposed to take probiotic supplements is to

replace the probiotics that we used to get in a wide range of

unprocessed fermented foods such as homemade yogurt, sauerkraut,

buttermilk, pickled foods, kimchi, real soy sauce, raw vinegar, tempeh,

etc. -- foods that are no longer a significant part of our diet. But

think about this for a moment. These foods are not enteric coated. How

could these foods provide probiotic value if the beneficial bacteria

were destroyed by stomach acid? The simple truth is that beneficial

bacteria, for the most part, easily survive stomach acid. Also, if you

take your probiotic supplements with water on an empty stomach (as

we've already discussed), they encounter almost no stomach acid anyway.

Conclusion

The bottom line here is that most people are very confused about the role stomach acid plays in health. Most people:

Think they have too much, when in fact they have too little. Treat the symptom and suppress stomach acid production, ultimately leading to long-term health problems.

Ultimately lose the capacity to produce sufficient stomach acid as a

result of dietary abuse and continual use of medications to suppress

the body's ability to produce it.

Don't get into that trap.

Use digestive enzymes with all your meals. Drink aloe vera juice. Use probiotic supplements with confidence. Use proteolytic enzyme supplements with confidence. And, if needed, use apple cider vinegar or betaine hydrochloride supplements to make up for stomach acid insufficiency.

# # #

Sincerely,

Kristen Barron

Baseline of Health Foundation

Population reduction, a globalist goal, allows monopoly ownership of the earth’s resources – less population means more for them! War, famine, suppressed cures for catastrophic diseases, abortion acceptance, and health-destroying, cancer-producing Monsanto monopolized genetically modified foods all reduce world population and produce big profits. - Deanna Spingola, Political Researcher.

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