pH

The pH of your body is critical to its proper function and so it is maintained within a very tight range. If you have a swimming pool you will know how important the pH of your pool is to keep it sparkly clean and healthy. Well, your body's need to maintain correct pH is even more critical. As our body's state of balance is lost from subluxation, poor nutrition, toxic exposure, lack of exercise, lack of rest or stress, so its pH changes. Mostly these stresses cause our body to go acid. An alkaline state is uncommon and so we will focus this BluePrint on the acid state.

What is Your Body pH?

pH refers to the degree of acidity or alkalinity of your body tissues. Because your blood is flowing throughout your body the pH of your (arterial) blood is the best indicator of the overall pH of your body. It is maintained in the range 7.33-7.45 where 7.0 is neutral (i.e. not acid or alkaline) and your body's ideal is 7.4 so you can see the blood is slightly alkaline¹. If your pH drops below 7.1 you rapidly fall into a coma and die if this is not corrected. This is called acute acidosis.

Of course, the innate intelligence of your body does the best it can to maintain your pH as close to the ideal of 7.4 but it is possible to have your body pH at, say, 7.35 for years, even decades and while you won't fall into a coma, your body will be functioning well below its potential. This is called chronic acidosis and is so common with the current western lifestyle it is actually normal² – but definitely not optimal.

Chronic Acidosis Causes Disease

This chronic acidosis causes growth retardation in children, decreased muscle and bone mass in adults, kidney stone formation, and reduced growth hormone secretion – a key marker of the aging process³. Chronic acidosis has also been implicated as a primary cause of osteoporosis⁴, cancer⁵, obesity⁶, loss of muscle mass³, polycysitic ovarian syndrome⁷ and diabetes⁷.

Chronic acidosis is one of the underlying reasons why so many of us live to be only 75 years old with pain and disease instead of 110 years of age with vitality, clarity and zest. So if you want optimal health now and in the future, read on carefully.

For many people, correcting their pH can give the biggest immediate improvement in how they feel of anything they may do. I have often had patients tell me of anxiety reducing, pain diminishing, appetite reduction, energy levels increasing and improvements in general wellbeing in just 1 or 2 days!

Take care

The pH of your body is a very well studied subject with a long established body of research. The first investigations were made back in the 1930's. Unfortunately, there are several writers who have popularised the concept who really don't know what they are talking about. You can find all sorts of different lists on the internet of foods you should and shouldn't eat because they are supposed to be alkaline-forming or acid-forming. While this concept is correct, every single list I have seen published on the internet and every book I have read are quite wrong. So be careful!

I will always give you my references so you know where my information has come from and if you have a scientific background you can read these papers for yourself.

How to measure your pH

The first step of course is to measure your pH to find out if correcting it is important for you. If your pH is normal, then this BluePrint is not important for you. Just check your pH, say, once every 6 months to ensure it stays normal.

It is not so easy to measure the blood pH but it is very easy to measure that of your urine which is a good indicator of the pH of your blood. The optimal range for urine is between pH 6.5 and pH 7.5⁸.

Get some good quality pH paper with a pH range of 5.5-8.0 (available here). Go to the bathroom and tear off a strip about 3 cm long. Touch it to your urine mid-stream. It will change colour immediately going fairly dark if all is good. If it doesn't change colour, it means your body is acid. This is bad BUT it is good that you now know about it because it is also quite easy to correct. Allowing this acid state to continue is very unhealthy so follow the steps described below.

If you still can't get your pH to come up after one or two weeks of the simple lifestyle changes below, it could be simply because it has been so far down for so long and needs some help to restore the normal balance so your body can maintain the normal levels on its own. I recommend you use Alkaline Booster to bring your pH up. Test yourself morning and night. If you are low, take 1-2 teaspoons dissolved in a glass of water. You should find your pH will come up in 1-2 hours if you want to check it again and see.

Note that the pH of your saliva is NOT related to that of your blood and so is NOT a useful indicator of blood pH^{9, 10}.

How to increase your pH

If you measure your pH and do find chronic acidosis, you need to correct it. It's easy if you know how: I recommend you buy Alkaline Booster. It will bring your pH up to the normal range in just 1-2 hours. Like I said, some people can feel dramatically better in just this amount of time. Then, check you urine pH in the morning when you get up and at night before you go to bed. Take a teaspoon of Alkaline Booster if you find it is low. When it starts to stay good on its own, stop the evening check and just do the morning check. Once that is consistently good, just do the check once a week, then once month then once every 6 months. You may find your pH goes down after a big night or a period of stress. So check at those times too.

But what you really want is to enable the natural intelligence of your body to normalise your pH for you rather than depend on a supplement. These are the things that you need to get right:

1. Cut out grains and sugar from your diet. Eat meat in moderation and eat plenty of vegetables (sound familiar?)
2. Eat less "table salt" - stick with sea salt
3. Eat more vegetables (did I say that already?)
4. Increase your mineral intake - eat organic, take a good multivitamin supplement, use bone broth in your cooking and soups
5. Do regular exercise to improve your breathing
6. Drink alkaline water

Some people find it really quite hard to get their pH up without help. But with the Alkaline Booster, you can fix the effects while you work on fixing the cause.

Now You Know

Now you know why we measure our body pH and why that figure is so important. Apply all of the information you've read in this BluePrint and watch your pH go up. When it's over 7.0, have a celebration! You are doing very well. (But don't celebrate by eating sugar!)

Yours in Optimal Health,

Richard Sawyer.

Key Message

• pH is the measure of the degree of acid or alkali in your body
• pH 7.0 is neutral – your blood ideal pH is 7.4
• pH is maintained in a very tight range of 7.36 – 7.44
• Life stress in general makes acid, pushing pH down. This is called chronic acidosis
• Chronic acidosis is associated with cancer, infection, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases
• There are steps you can take to normalise chronic acidosis

Making It Real

1. Buy pH paper and measure your pH upon rising
2. If it is low, take a teaspoon of Alkaline Booster. Check again in the evening and do the same.
3. Repeat until you don't need the Alkaline Booster anymore
4. To get your body to lift your pH naturally:
   1. Cut out grains and sugar from your diet
   2. Eat less "table salt" - stick with sea salt
   3. Increase your mineral intake
   4. Do regular exercise
   5. Drink alkaline water

References

1. Guyton AC, Hall JE. Textbook of Medical Physiology. 10th. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company; 2001:346-363.

2. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, et al. Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2005;81(2):341-54. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15699220.

3. Frassetto L, Morris RC, Sellmeyer DE, Todd K, Sebastian A. Diet, evolution and aging--the pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet. European journal of nutrition. 2001;40(5):200-13. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11842945.

4. Dawson-Hughes B, Harris SS, Palermo NJ, et al. Treatment with potassium bicarbonate lowers calcium excretion and bone resorption in older men and women. The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism. 2009;94(1):96-102. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18940881.

5. Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Sellmeyer DE, Merriam RL, Morris RC. Estimation of the net acid load of the diet of ancestral preagricultural Homo sapiens and their hominid ancestors. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2002;76(6):1308-16. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12450898.

6. Maalouf NM, Cameron MA, Moe OW, Adams-Huet B, Sakhaee K. Low urine pH: a novel feature of the metabolic syndrome. Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN. 2007;2(5):883-8. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17702734.

7. Freeman JM, Kossoff EH, Hartman AL. The ketogenic diet: one decade later. Pediatrics. 2007;119(3):535-43. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17332207.

8. Welch AA, Mulligan A, Bingham SA, Khaw K. Urine pH is an indicator of dietary acid-base load, fruit and vegetables and meat intakes: results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Norfolk population study. The British journal of nutrition. 2008;99(6):1335-43. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18042305.

9. Rojas-Morales T, Navas R, Viera N, Alvarez CJ, Chaparro N. pH and salivary sodium bicarbonate in cancer patients: correlation with seric concentration. Medicina oral, patología oral y cirugía bucal. 2008;13(7):E456-9. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18587311.

10. König D, Muser K, Dickhuth H, Berg A, Deibert P. Effect of a supplement rich in alkaline minerals on acid-base balance in humans. Nutrition journal. 2009;8:23. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19515242.