Balance Your pH
Our society is plagued with many health concerns. Some natural health professionals believe one of the explanations for this may be because of the body’s pH. There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding on pH. Here is some research that discusses Acid/Alkaline from different perspectives. The information below is from my direct experience working with clients over the past 35+ years.
Recently people are spending money on alkaline water machines, drinking alkaline water, drinking vinegar, or taking baking soda or taking coral calcium to help with their health issues. My question to you is how can you know what technique can benefit your body if you don’t even know what the baseline pH is for your body? Below is some information to help inform you of things you can do to assist your body in having optimal pH.
What is pH?
First, what is pH? When an acid is poured into water, it gives up an H (hydrogen) molecule to the water. The acidity or alkalinity of a solution refers to the concentration of hydrogen ions (H) in the solution. The concentration of hydrogen ions is more conveniently expressed in terms of pH or “potential of Hydrogen”. So, the lower the pH number, the more acidic the solution.
For example, pure water has a pH of 10–7, therefore its pH is 7. This represents neutrality, which means that it is neither acid nor alkaline. Vinegar has an H 10–3, it is, therefore, acidic with a pH of 3. Milk of Magnesia has an H of 10 –10 or a pH of 10, so it is very alkaline.
For practical purposes, the pH scale extends from 0 to 14. It is important to understand that this scale is a logarithmic scale. What that means is that pH 5 represents 10 times greater acidity than pH 6; pH 4 is 100 times more acidic than pH 6.
For those of you that have hot tubs, pools, ponds, or fish tanks; you understand the importance of pH. If the pH is not correct, the water will attract organisms in the water — requiring you to clean your pool more often, and improper pH will kill your fish if it isn’t correct.
Testing Kits
Now that you understand pH, how do you find out what your pH is and if you are acidic or alkaline? Some stores carry pH-testing kits. Because the scale is the same, it doesn’t matter whether you are testing your pool water or your fish tank — these pH kits can be used to test your body as well. However most recently, the pH strips you will find will be “idiot proofed”, meaning that the pH strips are labeled with specific pool/hot tub products, which makes it easy to use for your leisure activities, but not for testing your body pH. You can purchase general pH kits off of many websites now. Here is one we recommend often.
Taking your pH
It is important to look at your pH readings for both your urine and your saliva to confirm that you are digesting your food properly and eliminating acid. The most accurate time to test is first thing in the morning when you wake up, before you consume any fluid or food, and before brushing your teeth. We recommend people take their pH once a week and record it on a calendar. If you are paying attention, you will see it change one way or the other before any illness starts, guiding you to make better choices to stay healthier.
Healthy pH
What is Normal? Your urinary and saliva pH are supposed to fluctuate throughout the day. It changes because of emotions (stress) and diet. Normal baseline pH for urine is 6.4 and healthy saliva pH is 6.5 and is only available first thing in the morning when you wake up. It is important that your urine is more acidic than your saliva. This tells us that your body is excreting excess acid correctly and not holding it within your body. If your saliva is more acidic than your urine — natural health professionals call this “switched”.
The results of saliva testing also help to indicate the activity of digestive enzymes in the body. The stomach, liver, and pancreas primarily create enzymes. If the saliva pH is too low (below 6.5), the body may be producing too many acids or may be overwhelmed by acids because it has lost the ability to adequately remove them through the urine.
One of the examples I share with clients to illustrate pH is from one of my dogs, a Keeshond I raised from a pup named Mikalou many years ago. Mika was away from my home for 1 year (it’s a long boring story so I will spare you the details). More importantly, when he came back, he was 11 years old, he was overweight and I could tell that his joints were bothering him, he had trouble getting up and down the steps.
That first month, everywhere he peed in the backyard, he burned the grass. The grass was the pH stick in this case. This was information for me as it meant that he was pushing acid out of his body. This is a good thing! I was happy that now the acid was coming out instead of creating acidic conditions in his body causing his painful joints.
This yellow grass situation lasted for about a month, which is what I expected. Natural health professionals often say that it takes 3 months to turn illness around and 1 month for every year you have had the problem. He was gone for about 1 year and eating what was obviously poor food which started making him sick. Putting him on a better diet helped him to drop about 20 pounds and eliminate his joint issues in a month to the day. Even I was shocked! Mikalou lived to be 17 years old. He was a great dog and taught me so much 😊
What is really sad is that most dogs (and people’s) diets are so poor, creating acidic conditions in the body, and yellow grass for dogs. If their diet was changed, so would their pH and overall health. You can read more about the recommended diet for pets here.
My son did an experiment in the 4th grade for his science project. He put a whole fresh egg into 3 jars for 24 hours. One jar had water, one had vinegar and one had apple juice. Vinegar is acidic and the eggshell completely dissolved in the jar. If your body is too acidic it will borrow minerals including calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium from your organs and bones to buffer the acid and help to maintain a state of “homeostasis” or balance within the body. Similar to what the vinegar did to the eggshell.
Many people are acidic because of the foods they eat — these foods are considered acidic: coffee, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, soft drinks, white flour, and dairy products. One of the best ways to counter this is to eat more vegetables. All vegetables are alkaline, and incorporating the majority of your diet with vegetables not only provides healthy nutrients but alkalizing benefits. Celery in particular is very beneficial to the body.
Although meat is considered in some studies to make the body acidic, I have not seen this evidence with my clients. In fact, I have seen many clients who eat carnivore diets with perfect pH. My experience has seen more of the foods listed above as the culprit, as well as emotions which I see as the largest acid producer in the body.
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A study conducted at the University of California — San Francisco on 9,704 post-menopausal women showed that those who have a higher acidity level from a diet rich in animal foods are at greater risk for lower bone density levels than those who have “normal” pH levels. The researchers who carried out this study hypothesized that many of the hip fractures prevalent among older women correlated to higher acidity from a diet rich in animal foods and low in vegetables. The body apparently borrows calcium from the bones in order to balance pH, and this calcium borrowing may result in a decrease in bone density. — American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Jan 2001, Vol 73 №1, pp. 118–122.
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Amazingly, some people are actually too alkaline causing the liver to overproduce ammonia or also from organisms that live in acidic conditions within the body that produce ammonia as a by-product. If the saliva or urine pH is too high (over 7.0), the body may suffer greatly from excess gas, constipation, and the production of yeast, mold, and fungus.
I have found that the body can only take so much stress and acid and at some point, the body switches and the urine pH goes high and the saliva pH goes high. Taking acidic foods such as vinegar is only a temporary fix and doesn’t actually get to the core of the underlying problem.
Each person’s body and chemistry is different and finding the best solution for each person can be done if you pay attention to what your body is telling you. I have found pH to be the missing link for many people.
If you are interested in learning more or checking your pH, we are happy to email you a free brochure which talks more about pH and what foods are acidic and alkaline.
As always, the information presented is just one data point for you to consider. It’s your body, know your options and make the best choices for your health. Work with your health professional for best results.
About the Author
Kasara is educated as a Mental Health Therapist, Master Herbalist, Traditional Naturopath and Energy Worker with over 35 years of helping thousands of clients find alternative health options that work. She writes articles on Medium, and on her website http://truhealth.com. You may subscribe to her Medium account or her newsletter to stay connected.
