Greetings! In today’s class, we shall look further into the symptoms and diseases caused by acidosis. The chart below is not new, but brought in from last weeks class; into this weeks, for review! However, there has been some notes added in red, by some of the conditions. Let us take a look into what these notes mean! (“What meaneth this”) Acts 2:12
Note No. 1
Kidney “stones” are sometimes concretions of uric acid crystals which are more apt to form when the urine is too acid. A more alkaline urine tends to dissolve them. The alkalies of potatoes have been found to be helpful in dissolving such formations.
Note. No. 2
The more acid the fluids and tissue of the body become the more subject they are to the growth of bacteria and disease germs and the less able they are to combat them.
The acid wastes of the body favor the growth of bacteria and predispose to infection.
The pH of the human body has a life range from 7.80 down to 7.22.
In the laboratory about 99 per cent of the pathogenic bacteria sometimes called “unfriendly” to human life, grow best at a pH of 6.90, which is acid. See the pH scale in this previous lesson.
A few examples are given below of certain important pathogenic bacteria which grow in alkaline media, but most of them grow best in media which is less alkaline than the body when it is normal.
Note that a few of these thrive at about the same pH as the normal body. Certain pathogenic bacteria thrive in acid media. The foregoing means that when the alkalinity of the body falls below normal the majority of the “unfriendly” germs grow more readily and the body fights them with greater difficulty.
Therefore high immunity to disease is materially aided by normal alkalinity of the blood and tissues. See “Medical Bacteriology” by R.W. Fairbrother.
“It is generally known to observing physicians that a state of high resistance to infection is associated with a pronounced alkalinity of the blood, by the lowering of which resistance is diminished.”
Note. No. 3
It is now known that acid-forming foods increase the excretion of calcium and phosphorus from the intestine, and that alkaline foods tend toward a greater retention of these mineral salts in the body. This matter has an important bearing on several conditions which will be mentioned in a later class.
Note. No. 4
A dog fed one month on a meat diet, short of alkaline phosphates, will show a thinning of the bones because he has used up the alkalies counteracting the acids of the diet. The same might cause bone and teeth destruction in humans. “When acidosis is threatened, lime is take from the bones to neutralize the excess acids.”
Note. No. 5
Extreme muscular exertion produces lactic acid in the muscles so fast that it would neutralize all the alkalies of the blood if other agencies did not operate to prevent such a disaster.
Note. No. 6
In an acid fluid the heart will relax and stop beating. In a more alkaline fluid it will go into rigor and stop beating in its contracted phase. While this refers to an exaggerated degree of acidity or alkalinity, it shows that a proper proportion of these two opposites is necessary to the normal activity or function of the heart and all automatic muscles, organs, and glands.
Note. No. 7
When there is an increase in acidity, the oxygen consumption decrease. At pH 2.6 oxygen consumption of experimental cells ceases and death occurs.
A reserve of alkalies in the blood is necessary to aid the blood corpuscles to carry carbon dioxide to the lungs for elimination. A lowering of this reserve is very common, and is a condition of acidosis.”
Note. No. 8
If breathing ceases for a few minutes, death occurs from carbonic acid acidosis. This carbonic acid results from the burning or metabolism of our ordinary foods–sugar, starch, fat, and some of the protein.
In order for the blood to carry carbon dioxide to the lungs to be exhaled it must carry a certain concentration of alkalies.
In violent exercise so much food is oxidized to provide energy that a large amount of carbonic acid is produced. Then we feel weary. When the blood-carrying capacity for taking this to the lungs for elimination is exceeded we want more air. This causes breathlessness. The extra breathing removes the carbonic acid and we feel rested and the fatigue is relieved.
Note. No.9
The acid-forming elements are phosphorus, sulphur, silicon, and iodine, which are solids but not metals, and chlorine and fluorine which are gases. They become acid-forming in solution when combined with hydrogen. These acid-forming elements take on a positive charge of electricity.
The base-forming elements are the following metals–potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, copper, zinc. They become base-forming in solution when combined with oxygen and hydrogen. These base-forming elements take on a negative charge of electricity.
It is now taught that the exterior of body cells is alkaline and therefore carries a negative electrical charge, and the inner section or nucleus is acid and therefore carries a positive charge, and that this arrangement makes the cell a bi-polar mechanism like a common battery. It is said that the inner and outer parts are separated by a permeable membrane, that the electric charges are generated by oxidation, which is greater in the inner acid portion than in the outer alkaline portion, so that an electric tension is produced causing a positive current to pass intermittently through the membrane to the outer section as it is generated within; and that this electric factor is responsible for the existence of the cell, for its activity factor is responsible for the existence of the cells, for its activity, and its resistance to disease; that this electric “potential” is essential to life and furnishes the immediate driving energy of the living process itself; that when the current ceases to discharge from the inner to the outer part of the cell (when the electric tension of the two are equal), that is zero hour and the cell dies. It is said that the protoplasm in the outer alkaline section of the cell ceases to function if it becomes too acid or too alkaline–that the right balance of these extremes is necessary to its functions.
From the foregoing it is evident that the body’s intake of oxygen and its use of acid and alkaline foods, and the processes of elimination, must be balanced to a very fine degree to make life possible.
This is deep science and is getting down close to the secret mystery of life in the body. It does not solve the mystery but leaves us confronted with the mystery of electricity which no one understands. It brings us face to face with the Author of electricity who maintains its mystic behavior in all matter and throughout all nature. It reveals that there are fixed laws which govern every minutia within the body, and that the continuance of life depends primarily upon living in harmony with those laws. These principles call loudly upon man to know his Maker’s will and observe it.
Note No. 10
“Every year not less than 500, 000 persons in this country die of chronic disorders in which chronic acidosis may be an active or predisposing factor.”
“Practically the whole American nation is suffering seriously from the excessive use of acid-ash foods.”
“The disastrous results of a national endemic of acidosis are becoming more and more evident in the yearly increase of the mortality rates of heart affections, Bright’s disease and other degenerative diseases.”
This formidable list of conditions which arise more or less from the excess of acids and deficiency of alkalies in the body should place sufficient emphasis upon the importance of a ration with a preponderance of alkaline foods to cause every student to want to know how to properly balance his rations and to carefully do so. Do you want to know? Keep coming to class, and by God’s grace the practical application shall be given; here a little and there a little.
* Study adapted from the book, Abundant Health by Julius G. White.