Now that you have learned the origin or etymology behind the body becoming overly acidic and inflamed, it is important to recognize how these adversities materialize. As mentioned many times previously, maintaining balanced pH levels throughout the body is essential when trying to achieve the best overall health and wellbeing. It is a scientifically proven fact that when body pH levels become too acidic you are much more prone to illness. Being aware of the initial warning signs of an unbalanced or overly acidic pH can help steer you towards a more proactive approach in your health journey. Consequently, you can avoid extra doctor visits, hospitalization, and toxic medications. It’s a much safer and wiser choice to work to prevent serious diseases from developing as opposed to being forced to react when they finally rear their ugly head!
Ideally, you would consume an antioxidant rich diet with sufficient amounts of alkaline minerals, enacting a properly balanced macronutrient (proteins/carbohydrates/fats) and micronutrient (vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients) from a whole foods diet, while limiting your intake of high acid forming foods and being adequately hydrated. Furthermore, you would need to exercise regularly, have healthy sleeping patterns, manage stress levels by practicing mindfulness, provide proper supplementation, and employ proper detoxification methods in order to preserve alkaline reserves and buffer out excess acids and toxic debris with the least possible stress on the body’s buffer systems. Sounds easy, right? It can be with adequate conditioning, discipline, gratitude, mindfulness, and knowledge.
However, most individuals fall far from these guidelines. People consume too much acid producing commercial meat and dairy, refined carbohydrates, processed and fast foods, alcohol, coffee, soft drinks, prescription drugs, and oxidized vegetable oils. Then add to that extreme unmanaged ill-perceived daily stressors, sedentary lifestyles, lack of sleep, limited to no regular proper detoxification of the body. When these negative dietary and lifestyle patterns occur day in and day out there are consequences. As a result, acidity and inflammation increase, and oxygen and vital mineral stores decrease. Scientists and practitioners refer to this progressive low-level form of acidosis as latent or low grade chronic acidosis.
When left unchecked, continued mineral loss will occur to neutralize the acid and address deficiencies. At first you may become more sluggish, put on extra weight, and get agitated more easily. As cellular metabolism slows down it generates the perfect environment for pathogenic bacteria, fungus, and even parasites to set up shop, causing digestive issues and even more acidity and inflammation to develop. As tissue acidity increases further stressing the body, more histamine is released, the gut is more prone to congestion leading to leakage, and you become much more susceptible to allergies of all kinds and the damage progresses.
SYMPTOMS OF LATENT ACIDOSIS:
Initially you can experience low energy, fatigue, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, heartburn, irritability, headaches, weight gain, depression, low libido, acne, menstrual cramping, muscle pain.
As the condition starts to progress you may experience many of the symptoms on this fairly long list:
More frequent colds and flu’s, smelly hot urine, allergies, joint pain, dry skin, thinning hair, bleeding gums, white tongue, fungal infections like candida overgrowth, parasites, colitis, leaky gut, systemic inflammation, hormone imbalances, bone loss, kidney stones, insulin resistance, asthma, eczema, wrinkles, age spots, irregular heartbeat, arterial damage, Epstein Barr Virus, cold sores (herpes) and other viral and bacterial infections like UTI’s, migraine headaches, insomnia, sinus infections, loss of focus, memory loss, vision and hearing issues, impotence, infertility, just to name a few…
According to Dr. Theodore A. Baroody N.D., D.C, Ph.D. Nutrition, C.N.C., and author of Alkalize or Die, “Acid wastes literally attack the joints, tissues, muscles, organs, and glands causing minor to major dysfunction. If they attack the joints, you may develop arthritis. If they attack the muscles, you could possibly end up with myofibrosis (aching muscles). If they attack the organs and glands a myriad of illnesses could occur. The acid wastes set up the stage for practically any and all opportunistic infections to possibly manifest from the common cold to cancer.”
Fatigue is one of the most commonly described symptoms among people whose bodies start to tip the scale towards the acidic inflamed side. As acidity further increases, so does fatigue. Simply put: Acidosis generates an internal environment in the body that is not at all advantageous to optimal energy production. As you know, when your blood’s supply or availability of oxygen diminishes in this overly acidic inflammatory environment, less oxygen can be delivered to the cells, and mitochondrial function suffers. This can cause a dramatic change in cellular metabolism as cells can switch from generating energy aerobically with sufficient oxygenation to a more energetically deficient method by anaerobically fermenting glucose.
For brief periods of time, like when lifting weights, sprinting, or other forms of resistance training, anaerobic fermentation is beneficial. The pain from the lactic acid burn eventually forces you to rest, oxygenate the blood, and recover. You certainly wouldn’t want this process to continue on a regular basis!
When latent acidosis is left unchecked respiratory enzymes become damaged and the body may be forced into producing energy regularly through this extremely inefficient fermentation process, and the body never really gets to recover. This can become very painful as lactic acid builds up in the muscle tissue, becoming evident in ever more common conditions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. This low oxygen low energy environment is also very conducive to tumor initiation and progression.
According to our good friend Dr. Warburg, “cells that produce energy by fermenting sugars may turn cancerous as normal healthy cells lose their ability to function.”
This type of acidosis is subtle and sneaks up on you quietly, like a lion after its prey. When left unresolved, this accumulated acid waste will disrobe you of your invaluable health. You’re not going to die from it, at least right away, but it will desecrate the quality of your life!
When left unchecked the degree of acidosis worsens, especially as you age. At this point buffering systems continue to be overworked and alkaline reserves become fully depleted. The body becomes more inflamed and conditions become more chronic and dangerous. In order to keep blood pH levels balanced enough to prevent death, your body pulls minerals from your bones, teeth, organs, and muscles at an accelerated rate. At this point, you may be subjected to metabolic acidosis or other forms of clinical acidosis and alkalosis as kidney and respiratory function is damaged.
This pattern of destruction gives way to lethal PREVENTABLE degenerative diseases like:
Diabetes, CKD (chronic kidney disease), Liver disease, osteoporosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, arteriosclerosis, Crohn’s disease, Ulcerated Colitis, Systemic Lupus, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, MS, all forms of cancer, and the list goes on and on.
Teeth can become weaker and more likely to decay. Bones become more porous, easier to fracture, and more susceptible to osteopenia, ultimately resulting in a much greater potential for the development of Osteoporosis.
In fact, in June 2014, The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) furnished new prevalence data estimating that a total of 54 million U.S. adults age 50 and older are affected by osteoporosis and low bone mass, which is quite high! If low bone mass prevalence stays the way it is, researchers estimate that by 2020, the number of adults over age 50 with osteoporosis or low bone mass will grow from approximately 54 million to 64.4 million, and by 2030, that number will increase to 71.2 million, which is a 29% increase from 2010. It is also projected that the number of fractures will grow respectively.
Besides the skeleton breaking down to feed minerals to your starving body, the excess acids will get stored in fat cells making weight loss near impossible, acids in the joints break down collagen and connective tissue leading to painful arthritis, arteries can become damaged raising blood pressure increasing the risk for heart disease and stroke, oxygen levels become depleted slowing cellular metabolism, causing fatigue, and initiating the degenerative disease process as the Krebs cycle malfunctions. Unfortunately, this is the fate of the majority of Americans and other industrialized nations that continue to be misled, deceived, and addicted to an unhealthy lifestyle.
Oftentimes, latent and advanced acidosis and its concurring conditions are accepted as a normal part of the aging process, in a broken conventional system anyway. Generally, people are prescribed pharmaceuticals to treat the symptoms potentially destroying beneficial gut bacteria, causing other organ damage, and creating yet more acidic conditions.
It’s sad to say that 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug. According to the Mayo Clinic more than half of Americans receive at least two prescriptions, and a whopping 20 percent of U.S. patients are on five or more different prescriptions.
Everyone should be up in arms about the fact that acidosis isn’t being addressed in the media despite its pervasiveness! You are probable thinking, why hasn’t my doctor brought this urgent matter to my attention? Due to their primary focus on drugs and surgery as “standard of care”, and their extremely minimal knowledge in nutrition and prevention, most general practitioners are highly unlikely to warn you of the potential dangers of latent acidosis when it’s ignored or not promptly addressed.
You may be alerted to acid/alkaline imbalances only in extreme cases, like when the imbalance was bad enough to require hospitalization and is immediately life threatening… A little too late maybe, you think? At the same time, you will never witness mainstream media doing a story on acidosis (at least as of yet). Yes, this is a call to attention! You should be heated about the lack of information being disseminated about this “under-the-radar” condition that plagues the majority of industrialized nations, especially America!
In all probability, most pharmaceutical toxins could be discontinued if everyone took the proper steps towards a pH balanced body. That’s right, the effects of chronic low-grade acidosis can easily be reversed if you don’t wait too long to make the changes. By consuming a pH balanced anti-inflammatory diet, limiting toxic exposure, cleansing your body properly and regularly, along with consistent exercise, and overall increased awareness, you will make a considerable impact on the quality of your life. This conscious minded approach can ultimately be the difference between quality of life and death!
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