pH is one of THE most powerful indicators of your body’s health status, just like your blood pressure and body temperature!
The pH resembles a thermometer of sorts, indicating ups and downs in acid/alkaline content of the blood, body fluids, and organs. Unfortunately, your body does not necessarily signal you in a timely manner when your pH is off balance like it does when your temperature is off a degree or two, although equally as important. When your blood pressure or body temperature is too high or too low, you can assume that your pH is out of whack as well.
The pH of saliva and urine provides us with a window of sorts, through which you can calculate the net comprehensive pH balance in our bodies. pH that is tested through saliva and urine varies slightly, but together they reflect the overall pH health of the body’s fluids, tissues, and skeleton. Saliva pH is a great barometer for the health of extra cellular fluids, which suggests the quantity of alkaline mineral reserves available. Urine pH specifies how efficient your body is assimilating minerals, resisting changes in pH, and in most all cases how it is handling the daily “acid burden” from cellular functioning, diet, and lifestyle. Ideally, the pH of the body will fall between 6.5 and 7.5 when in a normal healthy range, depending on weather you’re testing urine or saliva pH.
The change of one number (like from 6.5 – 5.5) may not seem like much, but it represents an increase in acidity of 10 times. This 1.0 is in fact fairly significant and is the difference between sickness and health! The difference between a pH of 7 and 4 means a gigantic thousand fold increase in hydrogen ions. This is calculated as 7 – 4 = 3, then raise 10 to the power of 3 which gives you 1000.
Besides measuring the acidity of body systems and fluids, this calculation system is also used to measure the pH of foods and liquids that are ingested. In a nut shell, once foods and liquids are metabolized by the body they can be neutral, have an acid forming effect, or act as an alkalizer. Keep in mind that all cellular metabolic functions produce acid waste, so a diet consisting of too many acid forming foods and toxins, along with a high stress lifestyle, will surely negatively impact your pH and overall health!
Carbonated soft drinks like soda, for example, can have a pH as low as 3 (not too far from battery acid) due to high sugar content, carbonic acid, phosphoric acid, and other synthetic chemicals, making them about ten thousand times more acidic than pure water! Shockingly to most, it can take up to 32 glasses of alkaline water at an alkaline pH of 9 to neutralize the acid from only one 12 oz. cola or soda! Can you imagine what drinking soda regularly is doing to your organ systems?
The foods you eat as well as your lifestyle choices can work to heal and maintain the body or hasten the disease process. Just like everything else in life, proper BALANCE is critical!