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 very 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:
"Homemade Yogurt"
* Stomach acid and digestion
* Too much stomach acid
* Too tiny 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 tiny time talking about how it fits in the digestive process. Most population 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 -- beyond doubt 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 integrate moves on into the small intestine. Once this integrate 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 practically 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 tiny pre-digestion taking place. This forces the body to produce large amounts of stomach acid in an effort to overcompensate. In addition to failing in this effort (much of the meal still enters the small intestine largely undigested), there are two major consequences.
1. Too much stomach acid.
2. Too tiny stomach acid.
Too Much Stomach Acid
This is obvious. In an effort to overcompensate for lack of enzymes in the food, the stomach produces an immoderate estimate of stomach acid to compensate, important to acid indigestion. Taking antacids or purple pills doesn't beyond doubt 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, continuing 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 beyond doubt double acid production.
The easy explication for most population with excess stomach acid is to supplement with digestive enzymes which can suck up up to 70% of the meal in the pre-acid phase, thus eliminating the need for large amounts of stomach acid and also taking great stress off the digestive law and the pancreas.
One other factor which may be contributing to the question 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. integrate a hiatal hernia with excess stomach acid and you have the possible for great distress. The accepted treatment for severe hiatal hernias is laparoscopic surgical operation -- with mixed results. Fortunately, there are chiropractic alternatives that can be quite effective.
In whether case, dietary changes and supplemental digestive enzymes are likely to produce vital results, without creating problems added down the digestive tract.
Drinking 2-4 ounces of organic, stabilized, aloe vera juice every day can also help soothe vexed tissue in the esophagus and help balance out digestive juices in the stomach.
Too tiny 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 output of stomach acid is quite tasteless 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 colse to 2.0. This results in partial digestion of food, important 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 population with food allergies suffer from some degree of low acid output 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 adequate 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 proximity of undigested food, harmful bacteria are more likely to colonize the stomach and interfere with digestion. General levels of stomach acid help to keep the digestive law 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 related with too much stomach acid? In fact, up to 95% of population who think they are suffering from too much stomach acid are beyond doubt suffering from the exact opposite condition. The use of antacids and purple pills then come to be exactly the wrong treatment to use since they exacerbate the fundamental health while temporarily masking the symptoms.
Options
Supplementing with digestive enzymes to reduce the need for stomach acid -- giving the body a occasion to rest and recover its ability to produce adequate stomach acid.
Mix one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar with water and a tiny honey and drink this with each meal. You may gently increase the vinegar up to 3-4 tablespoons in water if needed.
Supplementing with betaine hydrochloride (Hcl) tablets can also help, but anyone beyond minimal doses as found in most health food store supplements should only be administered under the administration of a health practitioner to avoid damage to the stomach lining.
Stomach Acid & Proteolytic Enzymes
As I mentioned at the top of the newsletter, we received a estimate 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 follow of stomach acid on supplements. In fact, the bulk of the questions we received were implicated 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 dissimilar pH environments, which is why I formulated my proteolytic enzyme formula, pHi-Zymes, to function in a wide range of pH's.
Absorption
Enzyme absorption beyond doubt occurs and manifests through two main avenues:
1. Pinocytosis
2. 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 effortlessly passing them through the intestinal wall. Once the enzymes are in the bloodstream they attach to lymphocytes and voyage beyond doubt 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 & 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 beyond doubt not. (I think this is primarily a marketing pitch for fellowships selling probiotics in enteric coated capsules, but the logic is flawed.)
The presuppose 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 vital part of our diet. But think about this for a moment. These foods are not enteric coated. How could these foods furnish probiotic value if the useful bacteria were destroyed by stomach acid? The easy truth is that useful bacteria, for the most part, beyond doubt survive stomach acid. Also, if you take your probiotic supplements with water on an empty stomach (as we've already discussed), they encounter practically no stomach acid anyway.
Conclusion
The Bottom line here is that most population 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 indication of illness and suppress stomach acid production, finally important to long-term health problems.
- finally lose the capacity to produce adequate stomach acid as a follow 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.
Stomach Acid