Full body acid: What’s eating you?

You want to feel vibrant. We all do. But something is eating away at you and causing many of the ailments you potentially face, ranging from lack of energy to cancer…

Acidosis is when your body’s internal environment — meaning all its blood, cells, tissues and organs — are in an acidic state.

Healthy humans are alkaline humans. An alkaline state is the opposite of an acidic state.

So overcoming a chronic state of acidosis and replacing it with a natural, balanced state of alkalinity, is the way to restore health and vibrancy. To do that, you need to look at the pH of your body, the foods that go into it and the other outside factors that can tip that balance…

pH – the body’s acid/alkaline balance

Your pH (potential of hydrogen) is a reflection of your body’s balance between its alkaline and acidic state. That pH is measured on a logarithmic scale in which 7.0 is neutral. The lower the reading on the scale the more acidic the body is — and the higher the reading, above 7, the more alkaline the body.

When the body maintains a high pH you feel vibrant, at ease and well. However, when the environment of the body is acidic, with a low pH reading, inflammation, pain, disease, and other unhealthful issues arise. Indeed, acidic blood can cause stroke, heart attack, atherosclerosis and high blood pressure. An acidic body can even lead to depression and obesity because of how the body is hampered in its ability to process nutrients, expel heavy metals and metabolize wastes.

Diseases like cancer cannot thrive in an alkaline environment. But an acidic body does allow cancer cells to proliferate. Many other diseases, including arthritis, emphysema, and diabetes can begin, progress faster and thrive in an acidic environment.

Types of acidosis

An acidic environment in the body is known as acidosis. Acidosis occurs when the kidneys and lungs are unable to maintain proper pH balance within the body fluids.

Too much carbon dioxide in the body causes respiratory acidosis. This happens when the lungs cannot expel enough carbon dioxide through normal breathing, and is caused by chest deformities or injury, lung diseases and overuse of sedative drugs.

Metabolic acidosis is caused when the kidneys cannot remove enough acid from the body. Often this happens when too much acid forms as a result of very strenuous exercise over a long period (lactic acid), dehydration or insufficient alkaline levels from improper consumption habits.

Acidosis also suppresses the immune system. When the immune system is not functioning properly one becomes susceptible to virus and bacterial infections, as well as worsening or triggering of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and MS.

Simply put — an acidic body in an unhealthy body that is on a fast track to pain, illness, disease and early death. It is essential, then, to create an alkaline environment within the body to experience optimal health. But how do you know if your pains, mental fog, illness or disease is caused by an imbalanced pH in the body?

Measure your pH

Your body’s pH can be measured via blood, urine and saliva, and testing these on a regular basis will give you a snapshot of your average pH levels on an ongoing basis. It’s easy and inexpensive to measure your pH by purchasing pH test strips or litmus paper online or at your local pharmacy. Testing your pH in saliva and urine does not require medical assistance.

The same pH strips can be used to test both saliva and urine but the method differs. For urine you don’t want to test the first evacuation of the morning. Any other time, simply pee into a cup and immediately dip the pH strip into the urine, pull it out and read the results. Usually, a color change will happen that can be compared with the color on the packaging materials. And the color is matched to a number, 7.0 being neutral.

For a saliva test, just wait a few hours after eating to do it, then spit into a spoon and dip the test strip, remove and compare the results.

If your pH tests consistently show you to be in the acidic zone, then acidosis may be the link to a plethora of negative health issues you experience daily. The first thing you should do is work toward returning your body to a healthy alkaline state. This can be done by changing your diet and keeping hydrated.

Water and the pH equation

Water is essential to life, yet most water is acidic — especially tap water which also is full of chemicals. You should avoid drinking tap water. It will increase the acid levels of your body and promote dehydration because acidic water is less bio available than alkaline water. Alkaline water is more hydrating and does not place additional acid load on the body. Distilled water and mineral water are good choices.

I like coffee and also drink filtered water, but both of these are acidic. So I use alkaline pH drops in my beverages called Body Rescue Alkaline Boosting Drops. (I am not endorsing these, just mentioning them as one among other brands). A few drops in a bottle or mug can change the pH of water from an acidic state to an alkaline state of up to 12 pH. Drops like these are an easy way to manage the acidic concentration of the fluids you consume.

Our normal diet is an acidic diet

The standard American diet is an acidic diet. Most packaged foods and meats are acidic. Foods are either alkaline-forming or acid-forming, regardless of their natural (undigested) state. For examples, lemons are naturally acidic yet when digested they become alkaline-forming in the body.

Most green vegetables and fruits are alkaline — and most processed foods, packaged and fried foods, and those taken from their natural state are more acidic.

The main point here is that we want our bodies to be in an alkaline state most of the time. We can do this by eating a diet composed mostly of alkaline-forming foods, by using alkaline drops in our water, by de-stressing, and of course by avoiding as much as possible acid-forming foods, smoking and drugs (even prescription, as possible). Overall, we can greatly reduce our chronic inflammatory and pain states with an alkaline lifestyle, and return to a better quality of life and feel more vibrant once again.

Keep these lists handy, to help you choose wisely to keep your pH where it should be…

Acid-forming foods: Alcohol, barley, beer, beef, brazil nuts, bread, canned fruits and veggies, dried cereal, chocolate, cigarettes, coffee, most cooked grains, cornstarch, most dairy, drugs, eggs, fried food, flour, lobster, malt, pasta, pickles, popcorn, soft drinks, soy beans, sugar, artificial sweeteners, tea, table salt, wheat, vinegar.

Alkaline-forming foods: Apples, apricots, avocados, baking soda, banana, beets, broccoli, berries, chlorella, kale, lemons, lentils, lima beans, limes, lotus root, mangos, mineral water, mushrooms, mustard greens, nectarine, onion, persimmon, pineapple, pumpkin seed, raspberry, sea salt, sea vegetables, seaweed, spirulina, sprouts, sweet potato, tangerine, taro root, vegetable juices, watermelon.