Chiropractic Elk Grove

Most of us never consider the acid/alkaline balance of our blood, but a proper pH is a crucial aspect to health. Many doctors stress the importance of pH because a balanced pH protects us from the inside out. Disease and disorder, they say, cannot take root in a body whose pH is in balance. It is an imbalance of acidity and alkalinity that allows unhealthy organisms to flourish, damages tissues and organs and compromises the immune system.

So what is proper pH?

What we call pH is short for the potential of hydrogen. It is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of our body’s fluids and tissues. It is measured on a scale from 0 to 14. The more acidic a solution is, the lower its pH. The more alkaline, the higher the number is.

A pH of 7 is perfectly neutral. The healthiest pH is one that is slightly alkaline. Optimally, we want a pH of 7.365. This number will fluctuate throughout the day, but the normal range is between 6 and 7.5.

What affects pH?

Normally, the kidneys maintain our electrolyte levels, those of calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. When we are exposed to acidic substances, these electrolytes are used to combat acidity. High degrees of acidity force our bodies to rob minerals from the bones, cells, organs and tissues. Cells end up lacking enough minerals to properly dispose of waste or oxygenate completely. Vitamin absorption is compromised by mineral loss. Toxins and pathogens accumulate in the body and the immune system becomes suppressed.

What causes acidity in your body?

• Alcohol and drug use
• Antibiotic overuse
• Artificial sweeteners
• Chronic stress
• Declining nutrient levels in foods due to industrial farming
• Low levels of fiber in the diet
• Lack of exercise
• Excess animal meats in the diet (from non-grass fed sources)
• Excess hormones from foods, health and beauty products and plastics
• Exposure to chemicals and radiation from household cleansers, building materials, computers, cell phones and microwaves
• Food coloring and preservatives
• Over-exercise
• Pesticides and herbicides
• Pollution
• Poor chewing and eating habits
• Processed and refined foods
• Shallow breathing

What are the effects of acidity on health?

• Allergies, asthma and congestion
• Fatigue
• Frequent colds
• Headaches
• Inflammation
• Joint and muscle pain
• Skin problems
• Ulcers
• Weight gain

Over the long term, acidosis can lead to:

• Arthritis
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Fibromyalgia
• Heart disease
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Osteoporosis
• Stroke

How Can You Achieve a Proper pH?

Even though there are many sources of acidity and toxicity in our environments, the biggest contributor to unbalanced pH is our diet.

Fruits and vegetables contain potassium, a natural buffer to acidity. The western diet contains little in the way of fresh and raw fruits and vegetables.

Processed foods contain tons of sodium chloride–table salt–which constricts blood vessels and creates acidity.

Eating too much animal protein causes sulfuric acid to build up in the blood as amino acids are broken down.

All grains, whole or not, create acidity in the body. Americans ingest most of their plant food quota in the form of processed corn or wheat.

Our problem is more a matter of not taking in enough alkaline-promoting foods rather than taking in too much acid.

Calcium-rich dairy products cause some of the highest rates of osteoporosis. That’s because they create acidity in the body! When your blood stream becomes too acidic, it will steal calcium (a more alkaline substance) from the bones to try to balance out the pH level. So the best way to prevent osteoporosis is to eat lots of alkaline green leafy veggies!

Acid-Forming Foods

• Cold cuts
• Corn flakes
• Eggs
• Lentils
• Oats
• Conventional Meats: beef, chicken and pork
• Milk
• Pasta
• Peanuts and walnuts
• Rice
• White bread
• Whole wheat

Certain foods on this list, like eggs and walnuts, might be acidic in your body, but don’t let that scare you away from eating them. They contain a host of health benefits like antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. A healthy balance is what we are shooting for where pH is concerned–it is possible to become too alkaline.

Alkaline Foods

Fruits, mushrooms and vegetables (especially citrus, dates, raisins and spinach) promote an alkaline pH.

Strangely enough, acidic fruits such as grapefruit and tomatoes don’t create acidity in the body. They do just the opposite and contribute to an alkaline environment.

Raw foods

Uncooked fruits and vegetables are said to be biogenic or “life-giving.” Cooking foods depletes alkalinizing minerals. Increase your intake of raw foods, and try juicing or lightly steaming fruits and vegetables.

Alkaline Water

Alkaline water has a pH of 9 to 11. Distilled water is just fine to drink. Water filtered with a Reverse Osmosis filter is slightly acidic, but it’s still a far better option than tap water or purified bottled water. Adding pH drops, lemon or lime, or baking soda to your water boosts alkalinity.

Green Drinks

Drinks made from green vegetables and grasses in powder form are loaded with alkaline-forming foods and chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is structurally similar to our own blood and alkalizes the blood.

How to test your own pH

You can test your pH by purchasing strips at your local health foods store or pharmacy. You can measure your pH with saliva or urine. Your second urination of the morning will give you the best results. You compare the colors on your test strip to a chart that comes with your test strip kit.

During the day, the best time to test your pH is one hour before a meal and two hours after a meal.

If you test with your saliva, you want to try to stay between 6.8 and 7.2.

Sleep is one of the most undervalued essential practices in modern society.  In 1910, an average night’s sleep was 9 hours. By 1975, it was down to 7.5 hours. From 2000 to 2002, polls found that it had fallen to 6.9 hours. Today, many people average just 5-6 hours of sleep per night.

At the same time, obesity rates have doubled! Sleep and the neuroendocrine system are intricately entwined. Chronic lack of sleep is thought to be linked to diabetes, hypertension, obesity and memory loss. Lack of sleep increases blood pressure and the risk of heart disease.

A recent study by the University of Chicago found that cutting sleep from 8 hours to 4 hours a night for less than one week produced physiological changes that resembled the effects of advanced aging and early diabetes.

Those changes happened in less than one week!

The study’s participants took 40% longer to regulate their blood-sugar levels after eating and their ability to secrete insulin and respond to it decreased by 30%.

Lack of sleep affects the secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone and increased levels of the “stress hormone,” cortisol.

The study found that recovery occurred and above-average functioning occurred when the subjects slept more than 8 hours a night.

So how does sleep affect weight?

Sleep affects the release of hormones by the hypothalamic-pituitary axes (HPA) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Sleep triggers or inhibits the production or release of various hormones.

Growth hormone is affected by sleep. You can work out for hours, but if you don’t get enough sleep your body is not going to turn fat into muscle.

Lack of sleep raises the level of cortisol which triggers the fight-or-flight response. During stress, our body shuts down normal maintenance. It activates fat storage and releases lots of sugar (for instant energy) into the bloodstream. It depletes the body of nutrients and triggers cravings for simple carbohydrates and sugar. Chronic stress promotes insulin resistance.

Leptin and ghrelin are two very important appetite-controlling hormones that are linked to sleep. Leptin suppresses appetite and ghrelin increases it. When people are subjected to sleep loss, leptin levels fall and ghrelin levels rise. Even when they received plenty of nutrition, people that didn’t get adequate sleep were compelled to eat more. Because leptin levels were low, their brains just didn’t get the message that they were satiated—instead they just kept getting the message: “Hungry! Eat!” When deprived of sleep, study participant’s desire for high-carbohydrate and calorie-dense foods increased by 45%.

A joint study conducted by Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin measured leptin and ghrelin levels, body fat and sleep amounts in 1000 people. They found that those who slept less than 8 hours a night had low leptin levels, high ghrelin levels and higher levels of body fat. The participants that slept the fewest hours a night weighed the most.

Another study, presented at the 2006 American Thoracic Society International Conference, came up with some confounding information. 70,000 middle-aged women were studied for 16 years.

The study found that:

• Women who sleep 5 hours or less weigh more than those that sleep 7 hours.
• Women who sleep 5 hours per night are 32% more likely to experience weight gain of 33 pounds or more and 15% more likely to become obese than those that sleep 7 hours.
• Women that sleep 6 hours a night are 12% more likely to gain 33 pounds or more and 6% more likely to become obese than those that sleep 7 hours.

What was confounding in this particular study is the fact that the women that slept less did not eat more.

“Prior studies have shown that after just a few days of sleep restriction, the hormones that control appetite cause people to become hungrier, so we thought that women who slept less might eat more,” says the study’s leader, Sanjay Patel. “But, in fact, they ate less. That suggests that appetite and diet are not accounting for the weight gain in women who sleep less.”

So even though leptin and ghrelin levels might affect appetite, it is more likely that the hormones that affect the metabolism of glucose and insulin-response are behind weight gain during sleep deprivation.

Doctors and scientists have long been telling us to reduce our salt intake, so it may be hard to swallow when I tell you research shows that a low-salt diet doesn’t reduce high blood pressure. But the type of salt you are consuming does make a world of difference for your health.

Nutritionist Sally Fallon reminds us that all traditional cultures have used salt in some form. But they didn’t, of course, use the refined table salt we find in our salt shakers. They used salt from the sea.

Refined Table Salt vs. Sea Salt

Refined salt is produced from sea salt originally. It starts as a ‘real food’ then quickly becomes a ‘fake food.’ Manufacturers harvest this salt with methods that strip it of all its naturally-occurring minerals. They then use a number of additives (including aluminum) to dry it and heat it to temperatures of about 1,200 degrees, which alters its chemical structure. The stripped iodine is replaced with potassium iodide in potentially toxic amounts. The salt is then stabilized with dextrose, which turns it purple. Finally it is bleached white.

Sun-dried sea salt, on the other hand, is laced with marine life (organic forms of iodine) and many essential minerals. This type of salt remains in the body at work for several weeks. Refined salt passes through the body quickly and may be why researcher Henry Bieler found signs of sodium starvation in people who ate lots of refined salt.

Celtic sea salt, that which is farmed with ancient methods from the salt marshes of Brittany, is one of the best varieties that are readily available in the US. It is light grey in color and carries 80 trace minerals and 14% of it is composed of macro-minerals. Red sea salt from Hawaii is superior to Celtic sea salt but is much harder to obtain.

What Sea Salt Provides

Aside from seasoning our food and adding taste, sea salt provides us with sodium, chloride, iodine, and a host of other essential minerals.

Sodium

Every bodily fluid contains sodium. Why? It is needed for many biochemical processes including (but not limited to): adrenal gland function, cell wall stability, muscle contractions, nerve stimulation, pH and water balance regulation.

Chloride

Chloride works in concert with sodium and potassium to regulate pH in the blood and the passage of fluids across cell membranes. Chloride is the basis of hydrochloric acid which is needed to digest protein. Chloride also activates enzymes that digest carbohydrates and is necessary for the proper growth and functioning of the brain.

Trace amounts of chloride can also be found in celery and coconut.

Iodine

Iodine is needed for many biochemical processes including: fat metabolism, mental development, muscle function, the production of sex hormones and thyroid function.

Iodine is found in most foods from the sea including fish broths, kelp and seaweed. It is also found in butter, asparagus, artichokes, dark green vegetables and pineapple.

Salt and Science

A study published in the 1985 British Medical Journal involved people that had a family history of high blood pressure. The participants restricted their salt intake for eight weeks. At the end of the study, no differences were found in their blood pressure readings.

Award-winning researcher Gary Taubes published a report called “The (Political) Science of Salt” in a 1998 edition of Science Magazine. In the report, Taubes concluded that “After interviews with some 80 researchers, clinicians, and administrators around the world, it is safe to say that if ever there were a controversy over the interpretation of scientific data, this is it…”

“After decades of intensive research, the apparent benefits of avoiding salt have only diminished. This suggests that either the true benefit has now been revealed and is indeed small or that it is non-existent and researchers believing they have detected such benefits have been deluded by the confounding of other variables.”

Salt and Processed Food

Professor Lichtenstein of the American Heart Association nutrition committee says, “If people eat a diet like the one we recommend that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fish, they probably won’t be consuming a lot of sodium.”

Therein lies the rub.

Most of the salt that people consume in the United States doesn’t get sprinkled on our food from a salt shaker. It is already present in the large amounts of processed foods the average American consumes.

This is a big deal when you realize that we spend over 90% of our grocery funds on processed foods in the US.

Dietician Katherine Zeratsky explains that salt is used to prevent spoilage and kill bacteria in processed foods. It also adds flavor and disguises unwanted tastes in food. The American Heart Association recommendation that we limit our salt intake to 2,300 mg per day is the amount of salt we eat in just an average amount of processed foods every day.

Raw vs. Cooked Foods

One of the most important roles of salt is an enzyme activator, says Sally Fallon. This is why, she theorizes, that enzyme researcher Edward Howell found that cultures that eat large quantities of raw foods need very little salt while those that eat mostly cooked foods ingest large quantities of salt.

Raw and fermented foods contain high levels of enzymes which help to digest our food and boost the immune system. Enzymes are deactivated by heat and cause the pancreas to work overtime.

Edward Howell found that low enzyme ingestion causes a “shortened life span, illness and lowered resistance to stress of all types.” He also found that people who ate mostly cooked foods, especially grains, had enlarged pancreases and smaller glands and other organs.

The health disparity of many Asian cultures as compared to ours is most likely due in part to the amount of raw and fermented foods in their diet. Ke-tsiap was an enzyme and mineral-rich condiment borrowed from the East by Dutch traders. The English added mushrooms and walnuts to this fermented fish sauce, Americans added tomatoes, and this once tasty and nutritious condiment is the forerunner of our highly processed favorite today: ketchup, which is now mostly cooked tomato and high-fructose corn syrup. Yet another example of a ‘real food’ becoming a ‘fake food.’

Sources

Nourishing Traditions, 2001

Weston A Price Foundation, 1999

British Medical Journal, 1985

CBS News, 2006

Science Magazine, 1998

Univ. of California at San Francisco, 2010

Mayo Clinic, 2008

Dr. Joseph Mercola, 2010

“With the proper diet, no doctor is necessary. With the improper diet, no doctor can help.”

~ Gabriel Cousens, author of Conscious Eating

Some “raw foodies” may seem extreme and obsessive, but there’s a lot to be said for increasing the amount of raw food in your diet. As naturopath Dr. Humbart Santillo says, “A human being is not maintained by food intake alone, but rather by what is digested.” ¹

Contrary to popular belief, cooked foods are harder to digest than raw.

Enzymes

Alissa Cohen, author of Living on Live Food, says that cooking food over 112 degrees destroys vital enzyme content. ¹ Nancy Lee Bentley, co-author of Dr. Mercola’s  Total Health Program, says that newer research suggests enzymes can become de-stabilized at temperatures as low as 72 degrees. ²

Naturopath Dr. Humbart Santillo explains that enzymes are used to break down food to smaller and more operable nutritional units. The pancreas and other cells produce enzymes within the body (endogenous enzymes), and raw foods are the source of exogenous enzymes, those found outside the body. ¹

“The more one gets of the exogenous enzymes,” says Santillo, “the less will have to be borrowed [from the body.] One can live many years on a cooked food diet, but eventually this will cause cellular enzyme exhaustion, which lays the foundation for a weak immune system and ultimately—disease.” ¹

University of California researchers measured the digestion of bread that had been cooked three ways: mildly, normally and over-baked. The longer the bread was cooked; the longer it stayed in the stomach. The over-baked bread caused an immune response in the bloodstream: it was treated as a foreign invader. ⁴

Scientist Francis Pottenger discovered that every food has a heat labile point. A heat labile point is the temperature at which the chemical configuration of food changes. Nancy Appleton, author of Suicide by Sugar, says we digest food in certain chemical configurations. Cooking styles that heat food to high temperatures create chemical configurations that the body is unfamiliar with and doesn’t have the enzymes to digest easily. ⁴

The Digestive Tract

As food sits in the digestive tract; it begins to ferment. Proteins putrefy and fats go rancid, irritating the mucosal lining and causing inflammation. The irritated cells of the digestive lining spread, allowing undigested and partially digested foods to pass through. This is leaky gut syndrome, which is linked to many allergic, autoimmune and digestive conditions. ⁴

In an article on Dr. Mercola’s website, “Raw Food–One of Your Keys to Outstanding Health,” Wes Peterson writes about some of the research that has been done concerning raw versus cooked food. ³

The first doctor to test and document the effects of cooked versus raw food on the immune system was Dr. Paul Kouchakoff of Switzerland. In the 1930’s, Kouchakoff found that food that was cooked until it was well done initiated a white blood cell rise called “digestive leukocytosis.” ³

Digestive leukocytosis resembles a stress response to infection or trauma. This increase in white blood cells had been observed by others but was thought to be a normal reaction to eating. At The Institute of Chemical Chemistry, Kouchakoff and others found that unaltered food (food that was raw or heated at very low temperatures) did not cause this immune reaction. They found that only food heated at very high temperatures or food that was processed and refined caused this rise in white blood cells. ³

They renamed the phenomenon “pathological leukocytosis” because they deemed it abnormal–or a response to abnormal food. The strongest food triggers of this reaction, heated or not, were processed and refined foods such as pasteurized and homogenized milk and margarine, and refined chocolate, sugar, candy, white flour and table salt. ³

Nancy Appleton reports that the average cancer risk due to amine exposure in cooked foods rises from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 50 in people who regularly eat large amounts of well-done and flame-broiled conventional meats. ⁴

Leif Busk, of the Swedish National Food Administration, says that overcooked starchy foods cause the formation of cancer-causing acrylamide. Acrylamide, says Appleton, forms not only in baked and fried starches but in meats cooked at high temperatures. As many as 20 identified cancer-causing heterocyclic amines (HCAs) have been found in such meats. ⁴

Published research has found a connection between well-done meats and stomach cancer and increased risk of breast, colorectal and pancreatic cancer with barbequed, fried and well-done meats. ⁴

Acidity & Alkalinity

Besides enzymes, the second most important benefit of raw foods is their effect on the acid/alkaline balance in our bodies, says Alissa Cohen. ¹

Dr. Robert Young, author of The pH Miracle, describes “The New Biology.” Disease, Young says, is not caused by external sources such as bacteria. Disease occurs within the body when acidity undermines the immune system. When our bodies are at the proper acid/alkaline balance, we can combat and defeat any invader, correct any imbalance, roll with all the punches. Acidosis, due to environmental pollutants and stress, processed and refined foods, lack of biogenic or “life-giving” foods and mineral-deficient water, contributes to disease and disorder within the body. ⁵

The major cause of acidity is diet. Cooked foods create acidity in the body. Raw foods neutralize acid and are loaded with antioxidants.

Cooking does degrade some nutrients but it also makes others more digestible. Lightly cooking food at temperatures less than 100 degrees, steaming, juicing, sprouting and using slow cookers are ways to gently cook food.

Dr. Axe’s Action Steps

1. I don’t recommend an entirely raw/vegetarian/vegan diet. Instead, aim for a 70/30 to 80/20 ratio of cooked versus raw foods.
2. When lightly cooking your food, avoid the microwave! Regardless of how long food is in the microwave, using this method will alter the chemical structure of the food. Use the stovetop or oven to lightly steam vegetables or re-heat leftovers.
3. To increase your intake of raw foods, begin the day with a Berry Smoothie, adding kale, spinach or red cabbage to the mix. Eat a large salad for lunch and load it up with other raw vegetables like bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots or tomatoes.
4. Share your raw recipes with the DrAxe.com health community below!

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