Stomach Acid
Why You Should Test For Low Stomach Acid And Mineral Deficiencies With Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis
If you don't make stomach acid, you do not absorb zinc. If you do not absorb zinc, you do not make stomach acid. That is the zinc/stomach acid conundrum.
If you have deficient stomach acid, you don't have a first line defense! We need stomach acid around 1.5 to 3.
Strong stomach acid will destroy any bacterial infection, viral infection, or mycotoxin.
These pathogens won't have a chance to colonize into the small intestine leading to chronic infection after chronic infection.
I have to reiterate—it’s very important to have stomach acid because this is your FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE.
The classic example is H. Pylori, the obnoxious bacterial infection that affects half of the world's population because half of the world's population is deficient in stomach acid.
Always remember that healing begins in the gut.
Hippocrates told us this from day one, and every doctor that's taken the Hippocratic Oath knows this.
The great Mavericks that have laid the foundation to natural medicine and functional medicine have always talked about how important it is to heal the gut.
To heal the gut, we must understand the mineral connection. Typically you’ll hear H. Pylori thrives in an acidic environment which could not be further from the truth.
They want to sell you their Billion Dollar Baby—proton pump inhibitors to suppress the hydrogen to making your stomach acid.
The definition of an acid is its ability to donate a hydrogen, which is a proton.
Hydrogen is number one on the periodic table so it has one proton.
When you think about hydrogen, it is a proton and it is an acid. We have to understand how important the hydrogen ion is when we're making stomach acid.
They try to tell us that H. Pylori thrives in this acid environment, so they can come up with their billion dollar drug, the proton pump inhibitor.
If you have stomach acid, and it's in that 1.5 to 3 range, it will destroy, neutralize, and eat it alive any pathogen.
This is why we have to understand that H. Pylori, and all these infections are because we do not have enough stomach acid.
How do I know if you have low stomach acid?
When I look at a hair tissue mineral analysis and see low sodium, low potassium, low zinc, and low phosphorus, you can bet the house you are not making sufficient stomach acid.
This is why the hair test is one of the most invaluable tools we have in all of functional medicine because it gives us the status of nutrient minerals, trace elements, toxic metals, and indirectly tells us about the adrenals, the thyroid, health trends, and stomach acid.
Stomach acid is our first line of defense.
It is how we absorb nutrient minerals, specifically calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc.
A lot of nutrient deficiencies, whether minerals or vitamins, happen because we don't produce sufficient stomach acid.
When you get that GERD, that acid reflux is happening because you do not have sufficient stomach acid to break down the foodstuffs.
So the food starts to ferment into your area because these bacteria thrive in a low acid environment.
You’ve got the bacteria in the food stuff causing the fermentation because you don't have the stomach acid to break it down.
As a result of the fermentation, you're going to get a lot of hydrogen gas; you’re going to get a lot of acids coming up like lactic acids and other acids.
***It’s not the hydrochloric acid, it's the other acids as a result of the fermentation process!
That will be the burning discomfort sensation that you experience.
We need that stomach acid first line defense to absorb nutrient minerals and for protein digestion.
When we're making stomach acid, zinc is the all star, zinc is the Michael Jordan to making your stomach acid, but we still need the other players.
We always need the Fab Four: CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM, SODIUM, and POTASSIUM.
With the advent of oxygen hitting the planet billions of years ago, we needed a strategy to help deal with oxygen metabolism.
Oxygen is an odorless, tasteless, invisible, mysterious, and paradoxical element that needs to be regulated.
Regulation of oxygen happens via the carbonic anhydrase enzyme, which is a zinc dependent enzyme that makes your carbonic acid.
ATP is the universal currency that runs every cell of every living organism on planet Earth.
To produce ATP, it starts by taking a glucose molecule through 22 steps.
The byproduct of making ATP is carbon dioxide, CO2.
CO2 is a very strong acid, so you just can't dump it into the blood or you will alter the pH.
Remember, pH, the potential of hydrogen, is the basis of all medicine.
The pH of blood must be between 7.35 and 7.45.
That blood pH cannot waver, not one iota or you're dead.
So we have the great acid base balancing system, so we don't become too acidic or too alkaline.
And this all happens via carbonic acid.
So we take this CO2 that we produce as a result of oxidative phosphorylation and producing ATP, and we diffuse it into the blood.
But immediately in the blood plasma is mostly water so it's going to react with water via the carbonic anhydrase zinc dependent enzyme to make carbonic acid.
We take a strong acid, carbon dioxide, and turn it into a lesser acid, and as a lesser acid, this carbonic acid can now be dealt with.
This carbonic acid will either be broken down to a bicarb and a hydrogen or a water and a CO2, depending on which organ is being used.
When carbonic acid goes to the kidneys, it's going to be disassociated into a bicarb and a hydrogen ion, that is your acid/base balance.
This process is how fluids in your body are made.
Zinc is the alkaline mineral that puts your fluids in the right pH, whether it's synovial fluid, cerebral spinal fluid, menstrual fluid, seminal fluids, digestive juices, salivary fluids, tear fluids, sweat fluids—all are dependent on the pH via this enzyme via zinc.
Every fluid in us is a result of that bicarbonate system.
That is how important zinc is!
Always keep in the back on your mind that zinc is the alkaline mineral that deals with the production of hydrogen.
Hydrogen, like we said, is a proton which is an acid.
So as a result of generating energy, we produce acids, and we need to understand how to control the acids.
When we’re dealing with sugar, that’s 12 hydrogens, so knowing how this mechanism works is critical.
Carbonic acid can be dealt with in the lungs where it will be disassociated into a water and carbon dioxide that we breathe out as a CO2 gas as a water vapor.
Carbonic acid can go to a red blood cell and go to the pancreas, the lungs, the stomach, and the kidneys, so the body has an intelligent way of dealing with the breakdown of glucose.
When carbonic acid goes to the stomach, via the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, it will disassociate into a bicarb and a hydrogen ion.
We'll be looking deeper into how it relates to the production of stomach acid.
The take home message of this amazing biochemical process is that the basic byproduct of this process will either be CO2 and water or bicarb and a hydrogen ion.
Conceptualize how many CO2 molecules you are producing every day in every single minute.
We don't have zinc stores like we do for calcium and magnesium which is why we need to understand the status of zinc in the body.
We lose 85% of our zinc just daily through digestion.
This is why understanding our need for zinc will give us a deeper appreciation for this spiritual warrior mineral always protecting you, always fighting for you, and always defending you.
Zinc is the secretor because it's involved in making all of your fluids.
Zinc deficiency could be behind your arthritic aches and pains in your joints, elbows, knees, fingers, spine, neck, lower back, etc.
When the pH of your synovial fluid is not in the optimal range, microbes can start eating at the bone and this is we call joint rot.
Science calls it rheumatoid arthritis or degenerative joint disease.
This is basically a wasting away of our bones.
This is why you have to understand the zinc/fluid connection and why it is important to know your zinc status with hair tissue mineral analysis.
When we're making stomach acid, we must look at the parietal cell.
There are five protein channels, these protein channels are instrumental in how our physiology is working because most of the breakdown is happening in these protein channels.
We have a potassium channel, a chloride channel, the chloride bicarbonate anti-porter channel, the sodium/potassium pump, the hydrogen/potassium pump—and whenever you see ATP, you must think magnesium.
We know that these channels are absolutely critical, so knowing how they work will give you a better appreciation for them.
These protein channels are imbedded into the cell membrane, sometimes they can be laying in or right outside the cell membrane and then with the stimuli of calcium per se, it can move the channel protein in.
Understand that the cell membrane is where we need to have integrity, resiliency, and strength so we can deal with the oxidative stresses that will alter the cell membrane, altering the channel proteins.
These channel proteins in the cell membrane are critical!
The cell membrane is a phospholipid bilayer, mostly made up of cholesterol, fatty acids, and some phospholipids, and so this is the importance of the cholesterol made in the liver.
This is why all roads always lead to the liver and why these protein channels are absolutely critical.
Heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, and copper displace zinc.
If these metals get into these channels, they alter these channel proteins.
Where the doors normally open, they now can't close.
These heavy metals alter the protein structure and block the passageway so nutrients don’t get in.
Mercury and cadmium can block 1000s of ions of zinc.
Zinc, cadmium, and mercury are very similar, part of the same family like siblings, but uniquely different.
Heavier metals will always displace the nutrient mineral.
They hit the cell membrane that causes oxidative stress, causing autoimmune reaction.
We have to deal with these things that alter the cell membrane.