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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Body PH (acidity) and health

Degenerative diseases, including cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, kidney and gall stones, and even tooth decay are associated with excess acidity in the body.

Acidity in the body can result from several factors coming together to overwhelm the body's natural mechanisms to maintain a slightly alkaline environment of about PH 7.4. These include physical and emotional stress, poor circulation through muscles, limbs and organs, various medications and a poor diet.

So, if you are in a stressful job, unhappy at home, competing hard in sport and eating a diet that is high in acid producing foods you may be setting yourself up for ill health or injury.

The body has a mechanism which maintains a constant pH 7.4 in the blood, this 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.

Some minerals are highly acidic in nature, forming acids like hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid. Others are alkaline, forming base solutions such as calcium, magnesium and sodium hydroxide. These counter the acid forming minerals.

The ideal PH for the human body is in the 7.5-7.1 range.

The range from 6.5 (weakly acidic) to 4.5 (strongly acidic) represents states from mildly deficient to strongly deficient, respectively. Most children are pH 7.5. Over half of adults are pH 6.5 or lower, reflecting the gradual rundown that happens with a stressful life, inadequate diet and the accumulating effects of injury and illness. Cancer patients may have a very low pH of 4.5. Cancer cells thrive in a acid environment.

While I would never go so far as to suggest that an acid environment causes disease, it certainly is associated with ill health, including sore muscles, sore bones, stress and generally feeling tired and unwell. It becomes a "chicken or the egg" question. But who cares? Who cares when the solutions to an acid body are so simple and a person invariably feels damn good when body PH is restored to about 7.5.

A low PH is very common in sports people who are over-trained, eat poorly and who have tight and tense muscles.

The first step is to get your body PH tested. I can do this for you if you are in Wellington using a simple saliva PH Litmus test. Once we know what we are dealing with, we can then set about correcting matters. This usually consists of:
  • Eliminating or reducing acid foods from the diet
  • Eating more alkaline foods in the diet
  • Taking an alkaline supplement from the Floradix range of tonics
  • Rest
  • Massage
The massage is a fascinating one. Tense muscles store acidic metabolic wastes that slowly leak into the rest of the body, poisoning it. If I test body PH before massaging a stressed and toxic body, PH is generally lower than 7.4. Immediately following a massage, the PH can drop several more points, indicating that the body has been flooded with acidic metabolic toxins. This helps explain why a person may feel a little ill for a couple of days after a massage. It also explains why they end up feeling great if they stick to the plan and do several massage sessions on the trot. They feel great because their body has been steadily squeegied of metabolic toxins.

Foods that are acid and alkaline:
  • Strongly Acid foods include: meat, fish, soft drinks
  • Mildly Acid: grains, legumes, nuts
  • Mildly Alkaline: fruits, vegetables, berries, dairy
  • Strongly Alkaline: green leafy vegetables, cabbage, brocolli, spinach, sprouts and cucumber

About PH
"Some problems that can indicate acidosis include: bladder and kidney conditions, immune deficiency, diabetes, weak brittle bones and lactic acid build up. PH is behind the body's electrical system, intracellular activity and the way our bodies utilise enzymes, and minerals, and vitamins. That is why pH is one of the first things to be looked at if you are experiencing an imbalance in your body. Decades ago Dr. Otto Warburg, the only physician to ever win two Nobel prizes, proved that cancer can not exist in an alkaline/high pH environment.

We can eat more alkalinic foods which include brocoli, carrots, dried figs, celery, grains and many fruits. On the other hand, the active ingredient in the soft drink Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8 and it will dissolve a nail in about four days. The phosphates in soft drinks bind to calcium and we can't absorb it. The typical Western diet is largely composed of acidic or acidifying elements (proteins, cereals, sugars). Alkaline foods such as vegetables are eaten in much smaller quantities; their alkaline content is insufficient to neutralize surplus acids.

Stimulants like tobacco, coffee, tea, and alcohol are also extremely acidifying. When we get angry or stressed we are also making the body ph more acidic. Our ph changes not just from the foods we eat, but due to our emotional states". Source: Your Body's ph And It's Relation To Your Health


Unknown said...

Really interesting post of the way food affects us. I'm trying to correct my diet to something more healthy and each time I think I've got it down along comes something I haven't thought about. Could you give some more examples of neutralish food. I take it that eating too many beans now has another downside;)

Gary Moller said...

Hilton, thanks for your comments. All of the leafy green vegetables, the ones grown in limed soiuls are alkaline as would be foods like carrots, taro, pumpkin and kumara. High acid foods such as citrus and acid tomoatoes are ones that come immediately to mind. Foods that are high in protein and nitrates can be acidic. A bone broth, while high in protein is also high in alkline minerals.
Its all about balance. If one is having a high protein diet then it makes sense to have lots of alkaline foods and even vegetable juices.
An alkalising mineral supplement like Floradix Magnesium or their Calcium-Magnesium version can be taken (available from These can be beneficial for settling digestive complaints like reflux and stomach ulcers.
To test your own body PH, you can order a "Medicine Tree PH Test Strips (15) from me for $14.00