I Googled the heading Acid/Alkaline balance. 3,730,000 search listings appeared! There are literally tens of thousands of books written on the subject. Nowadays everyone talks about alkalizing their bodies, having too much acid in their systems and how cancer can not live in an alkaline environment, as well as tons of other claims about acid being bad and alkalizing your system being good.
However, how many of you really know whether you need to be more acid or alkaline? For example, the disease Anemia is the result of an alkaline pH balance of 7.5 or higher. Anemia arises from a lack of hydrogen in your body (hydrogen is acid). Red blood cells require hydrogen, and an alkaline pH balance is an indication that you may lack enough hydrogen in your body to produce adequate numbers of red blood cells. In this case, it would be beneficial to add more acid to your body to balance out your alkaline state. Adding more vinegar to your diet is a great way to add acid to an alkaline body. On the other hand, a person suffering from cancer would do best to reduce the acid in their body, as cancer cells thrive in an acidic environment.
The difficulty in balancing your pH is in knowing where to start. Most of us have no idea what our body’s pH balance is at any given time. A blood test is insufficient in that it records one moment in time, and given the relative infrequency of such tests and the constantly shifting nature of our body’s pH levels, it becomes necessary that we take additional steps to monitor our body’s health.
The easiest way to take control of your pH balance is to regularly test your pH using litmus paper. Litmus paper, also known as a pH strip, changes color to illustrate the pH level of any liquid it absorbs. Your urine’s pH is a measure of your muscle and blood acids, in roughly equal amounts. Upon exposure to the urine, the strip will change color to indicate a pH level ranging from 4.5 to 8.3 (the exact color of each level will depend on the particular brand of test you use).
pH Levels
4.5 - 5.9 Acid
6.0 – 6.9 Phosphorous Balance
7.0 – 7.4 Neutral
7.5 and beyond Alkaline
Due to the concentration of muscle acid (which is more acidic than blood acid), urine tends to report as slightly more acid than your actual level, therefore an optimal pH reading via litmus test would be somewhere around 6.8 – 7.0. A pH balance below 5.8 can lead to an environment that will break down the calcium in your system. Calcium is needed for many of your bodily functions, including the beating of your heart. When your body is lacking calcium it will begin to take what it needs from your bones, often leading to osteoporosis! While pH over 7.5 denotes a person who has too little acid, a pH balance of 6.0-6.9 indicates weak acid. It is phosphorous which tends to keep this level in check
Everyone: Test yourself several times a day (once you’ve got a feel for it, several times a week) and take note of the things that affect your pH! It’s important that you don’t let propaganda fool you into thinking that you are too acid. By measuring your own pH, you take control and can determine the right steps to keep your body in balance.
You will find it is quite a challenge to make long term changes to your pH. Exercise, diet, stress and other environmental factors are constantly influencing your body’s pH level and make it hard to make large changes successfully. Personally, I have always been skewed towards the acid side of the fence, but by eating a lot of green vegetables (for the phosphorous content), and drinking a solution of baking soda and water, I managed to get my pH close to 6.2. A ¼ teaspoon of baking soda mixed with water will almost instantly neutralize the pH of your body. This trick is most useful about 20 minutes after a meal. The baking soda solution neutralizes the acid produced for digestion; yet by waiting 20 minutes, you still allow the acid enough time to work on your food. In time, I discovered another useful weapon in the struggle for good pH balance: brown rice. Brown rice has a pH value near 7.0, which you will remember is the perfect pH for your body. Also I have a lot of iron in my blood (I discovered this because I take frequent blood tests to monitor myself). I started donating blood, to reduce my iron levels. The combination of donating blood (reducing my hydrogen levels) and eating brown rice has left me with near perfect pH balance of 6.9 almost 24 hours around the clock. My road to get perfect pH balance has been a long and experimental journey of many years. Through the use of the litmus paper, I have been able to guide my pH to its present stability.
If you would like an inexpensive blood test, visit the Life Extension Foundation at www.lef.com.
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