One of the by-products of food metabolism is CO2, carbon dioxide. As you know, lung respiration is one way in which your body eliminates carbon dioxide - it happens every time you exhale. However, in order to eliminate all of the carbon dioxide that is generated from normal metabolism, the lungs would need a respiration rate far above normal breathing. Holding this constantly accelerated rate would indeed be very difficult. Therefore, other mechanisms comes into play for handling the excess. 1) The CO2 combines with ammonia (produced from the oxidation of glutamine) and converts to urea in the liver and is excreted by the kidneys. 2)The carbon dioxide combines with water through a process utilizing the enzyme carbonic anhydrase and the co-enzyme mineral ZINC. Through this process, carbonic acid is formed, which breaks down into hydrogen and bicarbonate atoms/molecules.
Aha - notice we just mentioned hydrogen. What does pH stand for??? Potential Hydrogen. When we talk about hydrogen, we are talking about potential ACIDS. When we talk of bicarbs, we are talking bases (alkaline substances). ACIDS are a normal by-product of metabolism. The body has the mechanisms in place to eliminate these acids. BUT, through poor dietary habits, shallow breathing, lack of excercise, toxicity exposures, etc., which can lead to liver stress and kidney malfunction, the ACIDS in the body do not always get eliminated as they should. In this case, what's a body to do? Well if it can't eliminate them, then it has to store them. And store them it does.
When the body has an excess of acid it can't get rid of, the acid gets stored for later removal. Where? In the interstitial spaces, also called the extracellular matrix - the spaces around the cells; the mesenchyme. When the body stores a hydrogen molecule/atom/proton (the acid) in the extracellular matrix, it believes that one day the acid is going to be removed. Therefore, in order to be in balance, it knows that for every molecule of acid that gets stored in the tissues, an equal molecule of bicarb or base needs to be put into the blood because one day it will be needed to escort the acid out of the body. This is the body's amazing compensatory mechanism at work. What we see here is the pH interplay between the blood and the tissues. If the body has an acid overload, it stores the acid in the tissues (the tissue pH decreases) and the blood compensates and becomes alkaline (the blood pH increases).
Is this important? You bet it is. We are starting to scratch the surface for the rotting mechanism in our body. But before we get there, let's push on and see what happens when the acids don't get an opportunity to leave and more acid accumulates.
The Acidic/Mineral Bugaboo
As more acid accumulates in our body, it gets stored and pushed further, and ultimately it gets pushed into the cell. When it gets pushed into the cell, the first thing it does is displace POTASSIUM and then MAGNESIUM and then SODIUM.
Wow. Those are three critical minerals in our body. The potassium and magnesium will leave the body, but as a preservation mechanism the sodium will be retained. Remember, the body knows it must place an alkaline molecule in the blood to escort out this increasing acid that is being stored in the tissues and cells. What it will often do (when mineral reserves are low, which is often the case when eating a modern American diet) is draw CALCIUM (the most alkaline mineral known) from the bones and put it into the blood. This leads to something called free calcium excess. This is something you don't want and it is what's behind osteoporosis, arthritic pain, etc. It is brought about by the body compensating for an ever increasing tissue acidosis somewhere in the body.
Note that I am being incredibly simplistic here with this whole story. Regarding calcium, understand that it does not just leave the bone to balance acid as calcium is not a buffer, but when potassium leaves it will bind with phosphorous from the bone and in the process of phosphorous exiting the bone out goes the calcium. In these situations what the body often needs is more potassium bicarbonate, magnesium, perhaps organic sodium, and possibly zinc which lends help to the whole proper acid breakdown process which we started five paragraphs ago. Calcium needs to be given judiciously as does potassium as potassium can exacerbate things like cancer which can thrive in an acid environment of the type we're talking about here.
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A word on Calcium
You never get calcium into the body elementally, it is always attached to something else. It is the something else which can cause a shift in the underlying pH of urine and saliva and if shifted the wrong way can lead to imbalance. The calciums that are neutral would be calcium gluconate and orotate (a good bone builder). These are calciums for use by anybody at any time. Calcium lactate on the other hand can push a person too acid. But it is ok to use if a person has a high average alkaline urine and saliva pH (7.0 or above) and you are wanting to push it down. Calcium citrate, hydroxide, and carbonate (coral calcium) can push a person too alkaline. But it is ok to use if a person has low average acid urine and saliva pH (5.8 or below) and you are working to push it up. In all cases you should return to a neutral calcium when the proper pH zone is reached. Continued use of the wrong calcium in the wrong pH can lead to unbalanced conditions and potential problems.
You can get your average pH as follows: ( (saliva pH x 2) + urine pH ) / 3
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Let's push a little further. We have discussed four critical minerals:
CALCIUM - MAGNESIUM - POTASSIUM - SODIUM
Well, wouldn't you know, these four minerals are the controlling minerals for our body's sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Simply put, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) controls our fight or flight response mechanism. The parasympathetic system (PSNS) controls our rest and digest response mechanism. It works like this:
CALCIUM Stimulatory mineral for the Sympathetic Nervous System
MAGNESIUM Inhibitory mineral for the Sympathetic Nervous System
POTASSIUM Stimulatory mineral for the Parasympathetic Nervous System
SODIUM Inhibitory mineral for the Parasympathetic Nervous System
When you run an acidic condition in the body, excessive free calcium stimulates the SNS. Magnesium isn't around to offer a balance. Potassium is depleted, so the PSNS is not getting stimulated to offset the SNS and it is actually being further inhibited by sodium which the body is hanging onto because of the loss of potassium and magnesium.
What does this give you? A person that is acidic, possibly prone to ranting and raving, hyperactive, quick to anger, moving too fast, burning out. Just what you'd expect from somebody running too acidic. And what does it give you when pushed to the extreme? You get a person that may appear as extreme PSNS dominant: i.e. lazy, lethargic, fatigued. But what you might have is a person pushed beyond SNS dominance to outright exhaustion. According to some health care practitioners, it is rare to see a true PSNS dominant individual but we find that this is not true. Clinically people can definitely be stuck in a parasympathetic zone. More on this in a bit.
What we've just covered is a bit of the biochemistry that gets us to where we're going, and as you can see, it's one of the many fascinating inter-related pieces to this puzzle we call health. Now let's go further to build the picture.
Acid/Base - Tissue/Blood - Biochemistry
As acids accumulate in our body, they get stored and pushed into the tissues. The area they get pushed to, on a local level, is going to be in large measure where in your body or with what organ you experience problems. When the body stores a molecule of excess acid, it will compensate by placing an extra alkaline atom/molecule in the blood. The blood will therefore become increasingly alkaline.
Now something interesting happens with the uptake of oxygen when the blood is overly alkaline. With rising alkalinity, blood can increase its oxygen uptake; therefore the blood cells can hold more oxygen. Pretty good, don't you think? Well, if you think so, you're wrong. The reason is, a little bit of biochemical reality known as the Bohr effect.
The Bohr effect states that with rising blood alkalinity, the red blood cells can saturate themselves with ever more oxygen. The problem is, they can't let go of it! If the blood cells can't let go of oxygen, then the oxygen isn't getting down to the other cells of the body. And do you recall what Otto Warburg discovered about cancer? It grows in an oxygen deficient environment. Now let's go further.
We have alkaline blood due to the fact we have increasingly acidic tissue and/or cells occuring somewhere in our body. We have an alkaline blood which can't let go of its oxygen to aerate an increasingly acidic environment.
So get this ---- Here we have an Acidic environment with no oxygen. How can anything survive in this environment? Through anaerobic fermentation. What ferments anaerobically (i.e. without oxygen)? Yeast, mold and fungus. If that's the case, then this should bring up a most logical question; Since cancer thrives in an anaerobic environment, what is cancer? If you answered fermenting mold and fungus, you get a gold star. That is exactly what cancer is. Want proof? In 1903, Enderlein and Schmitt (Munich) cultured the fungus Mucor Racemosus Fresen from tumor cells. Other biologists (some of those mentioned earlier) have done the same.
http://biomedx.com/microscopes/rrintro/rr7.html
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