ACID
We’re starting from the assumption that of all the balances the human body tries to maintain, the most important is between acid and base (or alkaline). Mainstream medical texts all agree: The pH balance of our bloodstream is one of the essential balances of all.
Mainstream medicine does not know how our body turns itself inside out and upside down to maintain that balance. The human body is meant to be alkaline. The body will go to great measures to maintain the slightly basic nature of its blood and tissues. However, all body functions create acidic effects; it is all too easy for blood and tissues to become acidic. The human body is alkaline by design and acidic by function. The body needs alkaline fuel, and those acids are created as a by-product of all human activity.
Add to this activity a huge acidic dietary imbalance, and you have massive over-acidification of cells, tissues, organs, and eventually blood. That opens the door to sickness and disease.
For one thing, it’s only when it is acidic that the body is vulnerable to germs–in a healthy base balance, germs can’t get a hold.
Acids are the representation of all sickness and disease. Good health needs a body in proper acid-base balance. Proper diet and lifestyle choices are the only way to guarantee that.
The relationship between acid and base is scientifically quantified on a scale of 0 to 14, -which stands for “potential hydrogen.” On that scale:
7 is neutral
Below 7 is acid
Above is basic (or alkaline)
Each number up (or down) the scale represents a tenfold difference in value. A pH 5 acid is ten times as acidic as something with a pH of 6; a pH of 8 is ten times as alkaline as a pH of 7. Higher numbers–more alkaline numbers-meaning there’s a greater potential for absorbing more hydrogen ions or acids.
Lower numbers indicate less potential. But you don’t need to understand the details of the chemistry. Just know that these two kinds of chemicals-acids and bases-are opposites, and when they meet in certain ratios, they cancel each other out, creating a neutral pH in the blood and other fluids in body tissue. However, it takes about twenty times as much base to neutralize any given amount of acid, so it’s better and easier to maintain balance than regain balance when the body gets seriously out of whack!
BLOOD
Just like our body temperature needs to be at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, our blood is ideal at 7.365 pH- which is very mildly basic.
Different areas of the body have different specific pH specifications, but our blood needs to stay within a pretty tight range. It is a good sign of internal conditions in general. Keeping the alkaline pH of the body’s fluids, including blood, urine, and saliva, is critical for good health.
Prime among these is the blood.
Physiological diseases are almost always the result of too much acid stressing the body’s pH balance, to the point where it prompts the body into creating the symptoms that we call disease.
Disease can also be the toxic effects of an outside source, such as exposure to air pollution from smoke, cars, or planes, or poisons from a toxic dump site, but that is much rarer. Symptoms can be the representation of that stress, but it can also be a sign of your body’s attempt to balance it. Depending on the level of the stress, symptoms may not be visible or even obvious.
Excess acid is something we do to ourselves, thanks to the choices we make. The good news is that we can make different choices once we recognize that fact. But we need to be ready to take responsibility for our acidic lifestyle and diet before we’ll be able to make the healthy changes.
All of our body’s regulatory mechanisms, including breathing, circulation, digestion, and glandular function, work to support the delicate internal acid-base balance. Our bodies cannot tolerate long acid irregularities.
Acidity shows itself in our bodies in seven stages:
* Loss of energy,
* Sensitivity and irritation (as in IBS),
* Mucus and congestion.
* Inflammation.
* Hardening of soft tissue (“induration,” including lupus, Lyme, fibromyalgia, hardening of the arteries, plaque).
* Ulceration.
* Degeneration (cancer, heart disease, stroke, AIDS, ALS, MS, diabetes).
In the early stages of an imbalance, the symptoms may not be very serious and could include skin eruptions, headaches, allergies, colds and flu, and sinus problems. As things get worse, more serious conditions occur. Weak organs and systems start to give way, which results in dysfunctional thyroid glands, adrenals, liver, and so on. If tissue pH strays too far to the acid side, oxygen levels decrease, and cellular metabolism will stop. In other words, cells die. You die.
To stop it, the blood starts to pull alkaline minerals out of our tissues to counterbalance. A family of base minerals is especially suited to neutralize or detoxifying strong acids, including sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. When these minerals react with acids, they create much less harmful substances, which are then discharged by the body.
A healthy body keeps a reserve supply of these alkaline minerals for emergencies. But if there are inadequate quantities in the diet or the reserves, they are obtained elsewhere and may be taken from the blood, the bone or cartilage, or muscles —where they are, of course, needed. This can easily lead to deficiencies—and the various symptoms that come with them.
If the acid overload gets too great for the blood to balance, excess acid is deposited into the tissues for storage. Then the lymphatic (immune) system has to neutralize what it can and try to get rid of everything else.
Unfortunately, getting rid of acid from the tissues turns out to mean dropping it back into the blood, creating a bad cycle of drawing more basic minerals away from their normal functions and stressing the liver and kidneys. Moreover, if the lymphatic system is burdened or its vessels are not functioning correctly (a condition often caused by lack of exercise), acid builds up in the connective tissues.
This imbalance in the blood and tissue pH leads to irritation and inflammation and sets the stage for sickness and disease. Acute or recurrent illnesses occur from either the body trying to assemble mineral reserves to prevent cellular breakdown or emergency efforts to detoxify the body.
For example, the body may get rid of acids through your skin, presenting symptoms such as eczema, acne, boils, headaches, muscle cramps, soreness, swelling, irritation, inflammation, and general aches and pains. Chronic symptoms show up when all possibilities of neutralizing or eliminating acids have been tried.
When acid builds up in the body and invades the bloodstream, the circulatory system will try to get rid of them in gas or liquid form, through the lungs or the kidneys. If there is too much waste, they are dropped in different organ systems, including the heart, pancreas, liver, colon, or stored in fatty tissue, including the breasts, hips, thighs, belly, and brain. We know these deposits by names such as polyps, fluids, cysts, acid crystals, tumors, warts, bumps, growths, masses, blemishes, moles, blisters, sacs, and so on.
This method of acid waste breakdown and disposal is also called the aging process. Eventually, it will lead to degenerative disease, including cancers.
And all this is caused by dietary, metabolic, and environmental acids. On the other hand, healthy alkaline blood and tissues create a healthy body.