Have you ever felt sluggish, had a hard time losing weight, suffered from skin problems or chronic pain? These symptoms, and many others, could be a sign that your body is in acidic state. Your body’s acidity, or pH balance, will determine if you stay healthy, get a chronic disease or if you lose, gain or maintain weight. Yet, this is a topic many people still don’t understand. In this blog, you will discover the healthy acid-base balance and what you can do to achieve it.
Types Of Acidosis
The optimal level of pH for the body is 7.4. Anything lower is too acidic, and results in acidosis, and anything higher is too alkaline.
Two types of acidosis exist:
1) Respiratory acidosis occurs when too much CO2 builds up in the body.
This may be due to:
- Any sort of obstruction in the lungs such as asthma or COPD.
- Chest injuries or deformed chest structure.
- Nervous system issues.
- Alcohol or drug use.
2) Metabolic acidosis occurs when the kidneys are unable to rid the body of acid or when they get rid of too much base.
Four types of metabolic acidosis are:
- Diabetic acidosis when too many ketones build up in the blood due to lack of insulin.
- Hyperchloremic acidosis is when there is excessive loss of sodium bicarbonate, which helps keep the blood neutral.
- Lactic acidosis occurs when there is build up of too much lactic acid. Causes include excessive or prolonged exercise, alcohol use, heart failure or other chronic disease, or prolonged lack of oxygen.
- Renal tubular acidosis is when the kidneys are unable to release acid into the urine.
Causes Of High Acid Levels In The Blood
Numerous causes for acidosis exist, including:
- High fat, low carbohydrate diets.
- Diets high in fat, sugar and other acid forming substances, including processed junk food, dairy, animal protein, coffee and sodas
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Dehydration
- Medication poisoning
Symptoms Of Acidosis
Symptoms of acidosis include:
- Systemic inflammation
- Heartburn
- Bloating
- Belching
- Insomnia
- Water retention
- Migraines
- Constipation with diarrhea
- Fatigue
- Halitosis (bad breath).
How To Reduce Or Prevent Acidosis
The symptoms above are a sign that acidosis is occurring in the body. Unfortunately, due to the poor diets and lifestyle choices, many individuals regularly suffer from these uncomfortable symptoms.
To relieve themselves from the discomfort, people choose to take over-the-counter, or prescription medications, to reduce the symptom without dealing with the source of the problem.
This temporary relief, as opposed to solving the root problem, is where the long-term health problems begin. Therefore, it’s important to take a look at the body as a whole and feed the body with high alkaline foods to reduce and prevent acidosis.
What’s The pH Scale?
Think back to grade school science class. You would’ve likely learned about the pH scale at some point.
PH stands for potential of hydrogen and is a scale rating from zero to 14. Zero being the most acidic and 14 the most alkaline.
Keeping a balance of acidity and alkalinity in the body means regulating the hydrogen ion concentration in our bodily fluids.
Acid is a molecule, or ion, that contributes a hydrogen ion to a solution and an alkaline substance removes the hydrogen ions from a solution.
Are your eyes starting to glaze over as you read all this science jargon?
To keep it simple, think about it this way… an acidic substance is something that causes chemical burns or a corrosive material to break something down. An alkaline substance, like baking soda, is something that neutralizes acidic reactions.
When our body is in a state of acidosis, also known as high blood acidity, we are more likely to develop life-threatening chronic illnesses, including cancer, arthritis and gout, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, depression, weight gain, skin conditions and more.
For optimal health, we want our body’s blood chemistry to be on the alkaline side of the scale, between 7.35 and 7.45.
With this healthy balance the body can easily flush toxins out of the body and disease cannot develop.
How To Test Your pH Levels
Testing the pH of your body is easy. All you need to do is purchase pH strips from your local drugstore and test yourself at home.
You can test your pH in two ways:
1) Urinate on the strip first thing in the morning and compare the colour to the pH scale.
2) Test your saliva and compare the resultant colour to the pH scale.
As you examine the colour of your test strip as yourself these questions:
- Are you in the recommended color zone of seven?
- If not, where are you?
If your pH is at a six or below you are too acidic and may be dealing with various chronic conditions like those mentioned above.
If you do not yet have a diagnosed health issue you can make some simple changes to prevent a problem from developing in the future.
If you see that your pH is at eight or above you are too alkaline and may be experiencing light-headedness, consciousness problems, nausea, involuntary muscle spasms or numbness in the face, arms and legs.
Due to the prevalence of chronic conditions and obesity today, it is obvious that most people are too acidic as a result of poor nutrition.
Making the switch to a diet rich in alkalizing foods, that will help reduce acidity and inflammation, is critical to prevent and manage chronic disease.
How To Eat An Alkaline Diet
Eating a diet rich in alkaline food is very easy. All it takes is eating more whole, plant-based foods than processed, animal-based foods.
Some of the best alkaline foods to add to your diet immediately include:
- Dark leafy greens such as spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Dark leafy greens are well-known to detoxify the body and reduce inflammation. Greens can be eaten raw, lightly steamed, blended into a smoothie or juiced.
- Root vegetables such as carrots, beets and radishes. Root vegetables are rich in anti-oxidants and have powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
- Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. These types of vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals, are powerful antioxidants and have been shown to reduce risk of heart disease and cancer.
- Garlic is highly nutritious and has a variety of medicinal properties. Garlic has been shown to reduce high blood pressure and cholesterol.
- Cayenne pepper has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant, helping to reduce inflammation, aid in digestion and reduce risk of various chronic diseases.
- Lemons outside of the body are acidic; however, lemons support an alkaline environment inside the body. It is a good idea to drink lemon water everyday to help reduce inflammation and keep the digestive tract clean.
If you find is hard to eat a variety of the fresh fruits and vegetable mentioned above you can choose to juice, or blend, them.
Vegetable and fruit juices, when freshly squeezed or blended, are easy ways to get a large amount of high alkalizing foods into the body.
By drinking fresh juice, or taking juice concentrate supplements, the vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants are quickly absorbed into the body and get to work immediately.
Making this a daily habit will reduce your acid levels, allowing your body to be an alkaline state and protected from disease.
The pH Chart
This pH chart shows a variety of foods from most alkaline to most acidic and everything in between. You will notice that most your fruit and vegetables are on the alkaline side of the chart, while most cooked, animal and processed foods are on the acid side of the chart.
Pop, such as cola is so acidic that it is off the charts. This is why people who consume large amounts of cola often are overweight or have inflammatory issues such as gout and other health problems.
Other Considerations
Even if your diet consists of healthy, alkaline foods but your elimination channel (digestive tract) is not working properly, food can get stuck in the intestines to rot and ferment causing bacteria and toxic build-up. This intestinal back up can then cause high acid and inflammation to occur in the body as well as leaving you feeling uncomfortable, cranky and sluggish.
Therefore, ingesting cleansing foods such as lemon water with cayenne, vegetable juices and green smoothies, melons, and other healthy, nutrient dense foods will help ensure elimination channels are flowing and expelling toxic waste to encourage optimal absorption of vitamins and minerals.
To keep your digestive tract healthy and clear you may consider doing a raw food, or juice cleanse, every few months.
You may also choose to cleanse the digestive tract from the other end, by getting a colonic, or doing enemas, on a regular basis.
NOTE: Please be sure to consult a health professional who is experienced in these types of cleanses before getting started.
Overall, for best health and optimal acid-base balance, it’s best to eat a diet that is mostly alkaline. Ideally eating four parts alkaline to one part acid, by including a variety of fruits and vegetables and cutting out or reducing your intake of animal products, high-fat, high-sugar and processed foods.
For a sample meal plan that is rich in alkaline foods click here.
When you take the extra effort to heal your body from the inside out, you will feel and look better than ever, lose weight, have more energy and be free from disease and cravings!
Rachel Joy Olsen, BSc., MBA
Vegan, Author, Health & Wellness Coach
Read my, “From Frog Killer To Compassionate Vegan” story.