“Alkalize or Die”

It affects virtually "every person" in our society because of the way we live, the way we eat, and the environment we live in. The result is an internal "Acidic" environment where dis-ease can easily manifest, as opposed to a pH-balanced "Alkaline" environment which allows for normal body functions - necessary for the body to resist dis-ease. It is true that if we have a healthy body, we will maintain sufficient alkaline reserves to meet emergency demands. However when excess acids must be continually neutralized, our alkaline reserves are depleted, leaving the body in a weakened, disease-prone condition - especially as we get older, as the threshold become narrower and narrower.

Unfortunately, there are still many practitioners who believe that the body can somehow miraculously and ‘naturally’ balance its pH - as if we were living in nature and eating raw foods and herbs. The truth is so far beyond this ideal. The truth - according to Dr Lynda Frassetto, acid/alkaline researcher from the University of California, is that we have turned an evolutionary corner. We simply can not handle acid waste the way we used to. Her research showed the sheer volume of acid waste our body has to handle has forced it to take drastic ‘war’ style action to preserve its strategic reserves - the kidney and liver - our major essential detoxifying organs. In her study of almost 1,000 aging subjects, she found that we are now ‘stockpiling’ acid in fatty deposits on our body (which leads to obesity), rather than eliminating it via the kidneys and liver.

In its infinite wisdom, the body has chosen to save the kidney and liver from degradation by excess acid. Of course, there is a cost. It’s called "obesity", lowered immunity, lack of energy and the whole host of acid-related diseases we are subject to including cancer, diabetes, osteoarthritis and more - much, much more.

The concept of "acid/alkaline imbalance", as the cause of disease, isn't a new one. One of the first persons who talked about the need to alkalize the body was the great "Sleeping Prophet," Edgar Cayce. He always referred to body detoxification with herbs, colonics, fasting, massage, steam baths and diet modification with the aim of alkalizing the body. Way back in 1933 Dr. William Howard Hay published a ground-breaking book, "A New Health Era", in which he maintained that all disease is caused by "auto-toxication" (or "self-poisoning") due to acid accumulation in the body: "Now we depart from health in just the proportion to which we have allowed our alkalis to be dissipated by introduction of acid-forming food in too great amount... It may seem strange to say that all disease is the same thing, no matter what its myriad modes of expression, but it is verily so."

In his remarkable book, ‘Alkalize or Die’, Dr. Theodore A. Baroody said essentially the same thing: "The countless names of illnesses do not really matter. What does matter is that they all come from the same root cause... "ACIDOSIS" which is too much tissue acid waste in the body!"

Dr. Robert O. Young, Ph.D. in his book, "The pH Miracle" says it this way; "Those willing to look again, and with clear eyes, will be rewarded with "the secrets to permanent health". We can heal ourselves by changing the environment inside our bodies. Potentially harmful invaders, then, will have nowhere to grow and will become harmless."

Unfortunately, according to Sang Whang, author of "Reverse Aging" even if we eat the best of organic fruit and vegetables, 97% of our food still consists of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, which will still be reduced to acid waste. He says that it is not what we put into our bodies, it is what stays in our bodies as waste that creates the over-acidic condition called "Acidosis" and this is what causes us to age prematurely. Sang Whang says that in terms of acid/ alkaline balance, the only difference between 'good' food and 'bad food' is that 'good' food will have less acid waste and more acid neutralizing result. Your pH balance depends on what is left after metabolism. So we’ll take a look in this article at what foods, lifestyles and supplements contribute to a ‘clean’ house within. Here our metabolism can operate as it is supposed to instead of acting as a continual janitor in an increasingly overloaded toxic warehouse.

Long term acidity is like rust...

It corrodes our tissue, eating into our 96,000 kilometers of veins and arteries. Left unchecked, it eventually interrupts all cellular activities and functions, from the beating of the heart... to the way we think. As we have mentioned, acids can be stored in fat (meaning unwanted weight gain). Cholesterol and crystallized uric acid are solidified acids that have been dumped within the body for 'later' removal - the 'later' that never comes.

Acid coagulates blood. Blood has major problems flowing around fatty acids. Capillaries clog up and die. The skin, deprived of life-giving healthy blood, loses elasticity and begins to wrinkle. Even with a face lift or liposuction, the acid remains and continues its relentless advance. Without a basic acid/alkaline balancing plan, every part of your body works ever harder to maintain health because every system... all the organs, the lungs, even the skin - are involved in the required maintenance of correct blood pH of 7.365.

The War Within

Within your body, your organs and cells are totally subservient to your blood. All organs work to keep your blood at a perfectly balanced pH, to the point where your body is willing to inflict major damage on organs if they appear to stand in the way of correct blood pH. If its pH drops from its optimum pH 7.365 down to pH 7.165 (2/10ths of a point), you could lapse into a coma and die.

That's why you get such a charge from a can of Cola or any can of a "carbonated drink". Its pH of about 2.5 acidity sets alarm bells ringing all over your body. Alkaline chemical stores that should be used elsewhere are sacrificed to the call of the adrenalin that floods your system. The ‘high’ you have learned to expect is no different to the high a drug user experiences as his artificial sensory elevation. It is your body screaming "Help", and you, enjoying the thrill of the fear. It’s "The Real thing". It's not just a glass of Cola that causes such effect. (Note: It takes 25 to 30 glasses of neutral pH water of 7.0 to balance one glass of Carbonation). Most of us already have a running battle.

When we die, it celebrates its victory by turning the whole body acidic... inviting foreign antagonistic organisms to the party! Dr. Baroody expresses it very well: "Too much acidity in the body is like having too little oil in the car. It just grinds to a halt one lazy Sunday afternoon. There you are - stuck. The body does the same thing. It starts creaking to a stop along the byways of life and you find yourself in some kind of discomfort. I watch with great concern as people of all classes and lifestyles suffer from this excess." He attributes no less than 68 major health conditions to a prior existent acidic inner terrain.

Why are Westerners so prone to obesity?

Is it just food? Of course, the food we eat, its quantity and quality has a large effect on our waist measurement, but because the body has made a habit of its 'last chance' solution (pirating calcium from the bones and teeth) of what to do with excess toxic acid waste, there is another reason we deposit fat. As Dr. Frassetto discovered, when we are faced with shortage of options due to an acid - besieged inner terrain, we dump toxic wastes in fatty deposits as far away from the organs and heart as possible... on the buttocks, the chest, the thighs and the belly.

Dr Robert O. Young writes convincingly on the same subject. He sees "sugar as an acid" and as one of the reasons we are so fat. That is not what we have all been taught over the years. He says that the body has to protect itself from the excess sugar we consume and so it "co-ops fat" to encase it and protect us from it. "Fat" he says, "is saving our lives".

Blood is always slightly alkaline (it has to be about pH 7.365). When you were born... your blood was pH 7.365 and as the only transport system for nutrients to every part of your body, blood cannot afford to be acidic. It needs to stay within a pH range that will maintain resistance to decay or putrefaction, and growth of malevolent organisms. Hence pH 7.365 is the ideal environment in which micro-organisms remain in co-existent or symbiotic harmony with the body.

Allow the blood to shift slightly either way and results will be felt in every part of the body. Beneficial microforms die, and aggressive microforms sustained by an acidic environment begin to multiply and mutate, taking the form of aggressive, parasitic and pathogenic agents.

If any substance changes from pH 7 to pH 8, it has become ten times more alkaline. Conversely, if it has changes from neutral pH 7 to pH 6, it is 10 times more acidic. As an example, a popular Cola, at pH 2.5 is almost 50,000 times more acidic than neutral water, and needs 25 to 30 glasses of neutral (pH 7) water to counteract the consumption of one glass of Cola. (Active ingredient: Phosphoric Acid)

You can now see that a change from the normal level 7.365 to pH 2 would mean that your blood would suddenly be around 4 times as acid as it should be. You would die from poisoning by your own blood. This is why every body system is used to support the correct blood pH. You can also understand from this that our blood and body pH can be affected at any time of the day by a myriad of events; food, drink, stress, pollution, exercise, or beneficially: by meditation, by drinking alkaline mineral water, by deep breathing, even by being happy.

It’s not an understatement to say that we live in a world plague of "microforms". These include more than simple germs. Yeasts, fungi, viruses and moulds are all microforms that exist within our bodies.

It’s not just their presence within us, but the excretions they deposit within us. These toxic wastes are produced when microforms digest glucose (sugars), fats and proteins in our body. They steal our food, turn it to poison, and dump the residue inside of us.

Today more and more doctors and researchers (including most forms of alternative therapists) believe most disease is caused by unbalance in the body. Unbalance occurs in a nutritional, electrical, structural, toxicological or biological equation, allowing germs to flourish.

If only people were aware of what causes minerals to be assimilated or rejected, we could save hundreds of millions in wasted supplement consumption every year. "pH balance determines - and limits - mineral assimilation."

Every mineral has its own 'signature' pH level that permits assimilation by your body. If we look at an atomic scale chart of elements, those at the lower end are capable of assimilation over a broader pH range. Those ‘higher’ on the chart need a progressively narrower pH range to be assimilated.

Summarizing, if you are not balanced, your body will simply reject most minerals. Why is this relevant? Let's look at "iodine" as an example. High up on the atomic scale, it requires near perfect pH for its assimilation into the body. "Iodine is required for a healthy thyroid gland". But our thyroid will receive no iodine unless the body pH is almost perfect. Thyroid deterioration has been connected to arthritis, heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, depression, obesity, and fatigue.

Today, inadequate mineral supply to the body is extremely common due to the depletion of minerals in our agricultural land. The supply and absorption of adequate minerals determines our health and wellbeing because it determines the conductivity of electricity in our bodies.

Electrical conductivity is the basis of an effective nervous system, which in turn monitors and reports on how well our various organs and subsystems are doing. The effectiveness with which our nervous system can operate therefore, is subject to a correct pH, just like every bio-chemical process we perform. By eating and living in a way that causes imbalances to our internal pH we actually 'kill the messenger'; the system that keeps us updated on how our body systems are fulfilling their allotted tasks.

Dr. W.R. Kellas, Ph.D., co-author of numerous books including "Surviving in a Toxic World", says that the pH factor plays an important part in ridding the body of mercury and other toxins. He says, "the best pH is around 7.365 because the more acidic the body is (below 6.5) the more it holds on to (heavy) metals. Heavy metals in turn create a high oxidative stress that acidifies the body." Dr. Kellas's clinic in California sends out pH strips along with their medical treatment and products to measure body pH. They have consistently seen better results when the pH factor is incorporated in their detoxification program. Many people who have embarked on an alkaline water regime have found that immediate detoxification occurs, bowel movements normalize after years of malfunction, and energy returns. They also experience classic symptoms of detoxification including headaches, body aches, itching etc as the toxic, acidic minerals begin to be washed out of the body.

A very recent worldwide survey of all current Alzheimer’s research has identified mercury as the prime suspect or causative factor.

On the last page of this report you’ll find a list of some of the acid and alkaline residual properties of many foods. To achieve a balance, health practitioners recommend a maximum of 80/20 mix of alkaline and acid foods. As you’ll discover, unless you are like ‘Popeye’ and just love spinach, silver beets and broccoli, you may find this rule rather hard to keep.

There is one client, who progressed from a diet of alkaline powders mixed with volcanic water and mineral drops... to alkaline mineral water (which contains the proper minerals) and. In his words, he just couldn’t beat his acidity with just food and drink.

However, some dedicated green food people do manage, but most enlist the help of alkaline supplements and/or alkaline mineral water.

There are many formulations of alkalizing green food on the market. They all work, and are a workable answer for a busy parent or business person because you need only down it once a day. Ingredients may include barley grass, wheat grass and all manner of green vegetables and alkalizing herbs. Few are organic so take care in  selection.

We all see many ads on TV and in magazines for calcium supplements. Calcium can certainly replace lost alkalinity, as it is constantly being raided in the acidic body. The catch is that regular calcium is very difficult to absorb with an excessively acid body condition.

In other words where it is most needed is where it is most likely not be absorbed in supplement form. Is calcium in these cases more of a palliative than a cure? An unbalanced acidic system will always hunger for calcium, but unless the cause is corrected, the hunger may continue forever. If buying a calcium supplement be sure to find one that has the correct ratio of calcium and magnesium in an ionic form for fast assimilation and the vital 2:1 ratio (like ionized Coral Calcium).

Sang Whang, scientist, inventor and drinker of infused alkaline mineral water for 17 years, says the problem with trying to alkalize using just food is that unless you can afford organic, you will metabolize a large amount of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other chemical residues.

He adds that if you ‘overdose’ by drinking too much alkaline mineral water, it will simply pass through the kidneys and flush away any germs that may have taken up residence as it passes through.

Infused Alkaline mineral water is used by millions of Japanese and Korean families, and has been a part of their culture since the 1980’s. Infused Alkaline mineral water is found in hospitals, in sanatoriums, and in clinics all over these countries. In South Korea, approximately 40,000 infused alkaline mineral water machines are sold every month in a country with six times less population than in the USA.

You can infuse alkalize water in two ways; by adding alkaline minerals or by using a alkaline water machine. Note that your tap water may already be slightly alkaline, but Japanese scientists at Shiga University say that you should have water at pH 8.5 or above. Water alkalizing drops formulae also work, although they do not clean the water. You should look for a alkaline mineral machine that has proven to be beneficial to mankind.

Using drops, all you need do is add some alkaline mineral drops to your drinking water to change it pH balance to alkaline.