In the on-going discussion of pH and calcium, various ideas have been expounded for resolving unbalanced pH. The standard resolution proposed by most natural health practitioners today revolves around so-called "acid-ash" and "alkaline-ash" foods. The allopathic medical industry pays scant attention to the subject at all until extreme conditions such as acidosis - occur.
Recently the idea of excess calcium has been presented, which prompts me to post information drawn from my own training. The ideas I share here come from the teachings of the late Dr. Carey Reams, biochemist and biophysicist. I had been involved in seeking information about nutrition and alternative health for several years before finding Reams teachings, and I used to wonder about the various types of calciums I saw in the Health Food stores. Calcium carbonate, lactate, citrate, orotate, ascorbate, phosphate, sulphate, aspartate, hydroxyapatite, etc. Was one form of calcium better than another? Or should I just buy the cheapest one? Is it possible to take too much calcium? Can calcium hurt you? Do the various kinds of calcium affect the body in different ways? How can I determine which kind of calcium is what I need? Dr. Reams was the first person I had ever seen who divided calciums into groups, based on the differing ways they affected the body. He spent over 50 years studying and researching the affects of various calciums and other minerals in the human body. He found that there are essentially three categories of calciums to be considered: Alkaline-pH calciums (calcium hydroxide and carbonate, which includes Coral calcium), Acid-pH calciums (calcium lactate being the most common) and neutral-pH calciums (calcium citrate, aspartate, gluconate, hydroxyapatite, etc.). "pH", as used here, refers to the acidifying or alkalinizing effect upon the body. I am also including only calcium types in the above examples that are commonly obtained. The body needs calciums from each of these groups in order to achieve balance for good health. Frequently people have an adequate amount of one kind, but a deficiency of the other (although it's certainly possible to be deficient in all of them). The balanced presence of both acidifying and alkalinizing calciums is important because the interaction between the two is how both kinds are assimilated. Without enough of one kind, there is poor assimilation of the other. Dr. Reams used to say that we dont live off the food that we eat, we live off the energy from the food we eat. If our bodies dont extract energy from our food, we find ourselves eating more food to try to get more energy. We also start to get sick. Imagine taking a cup of vinegar and a cup of baking soda. If you dump them together in a bowl, you will see a lot of energy released. But if you were to pour together a cup of baking soda and only a teaspoon of vinegar, there would not be much energy released, because of the uneven ratio between the soda and vinegar. In the same way, our bodies use both types of calciums in metabolism (acidifying and alkalinizing). If you are deficient in acidifying calcium (calcium lactate), it will express itself as an apparent excess of alkaline calcium, and you will have an alkaline pH (calcium "deposits" are nearly always one type of calcium accumulating somewhere in your body because of a deficiency of the other). Dr. Reams taught that, on a practical basis, there was no such thing as too much calcium, only too much of one type or the other. The purpose of pH testing is to determine which type you are deficient in. The pH testing can be done with good pH paper (must measure in .2 increments, not .5 increments more on that later). The alkalinity or acidity of your urine or saliva pH is not primarily a reflection of the foods you eat. It is an indication of your calciums ratio. The implications of unbalanced pH are significant. People with acid pH have overly fast digestion, and their bodies cant get much energy from their food. They tend to struggle with diarrhea, and frequently have a low body temperature. Ultimately, excessively acid pH can be a precursor to certain types of cancer, diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis. They have weak insulin and high blood sugar. Conversely, people who are overly alkaline have very slow digestion. They are usually constipated. Their body temperature may be too high. Depending on other factors, overly alkaline people tend towards heart disease, hypoglycemia, parasites and colon cancer. They have overly strong insulin, which depresses their blood sugar. The current, popular teaching that alkaline is better than acid would be strongly contested by Dr. Reams. In practicality, grown adults who have overly-acid pH (below 6.0) are deeply demineralized and would find it a challenge to become too alkaline. I am generalizing on the various health issues to be seen with folks with unbalanced pH because there are other qualifying factors that affect them. The importance of balancing your pH cannot be over-emphasized. If you are unbalanced, other healing therapies have only limited and temporary benefit. When the body has a balanced ratio of both kinds of calciums, it extracts a large amount of metabolic energy from both of them, which it uses to maintain the bodys health. Dr. Reams taught that our bodies use more calcium each day, by volume, than all other nutrients put together. Nowadays, the most common kind of calcium you will find being sold is an alkaline-pH calcium, calcium carbonate (usually ground-up oyster shell). Most multi-vitamin/mineral supplements use it, and wherever you see those labels which announce "Calcium added!" (whether in food, drink or supplement), it is nearly always calcium carbonate. (Being ground up oyster shell, it is the cheapest form of calcium available.) Most acid-indigestion supplements are made of this calcium (Tums, Rolaids, etc.). This would be okay, except that oyster shell calcium carbonate is extremely difficult to digest and assimilate (much like eating chalk). Not all adults and very few children need to take alkaline-pH calcium (and especially commercial calcium carbonate). So if a person's metabolic pH is already too alkaline (indicating a deficiency in acidifying calcium), taking alkaline-pH calcium will only aggravate the health problems which can be caused by having an overly-alkaline metabolic pH. Remember, the goal is to achieve balanced body chemistry. Another source of calcium carbonate is bone meal, which is decidedly preferable to oyster shell, but must come from healthy, organic, free-range cows. I have not touched on neutral pH calciums so far because they do not impact the body in as significant a way as the other calciums do. They are low-energy calciums that make them very easy to digest and assimilate, but are used up by the body very quickly. Dr. Reams said that the body could use up 1,000 mg per hour of neutral pH calciums. I use them in my practice as an added calcium simply to give the body more easily-assimilated calcium. They are also useful to give to infants, frail and sick folks and people with very poor digestion who would have difficulty metabolizing other, higher energy calciums. When I have my clients perform pH testing to determine their pH and calcium needs, I have them test urine and saliva, morning and evening for six days. The reason to test for six days is that certain metabolic conditions (i.e., the degree of system demineralization) causes the pH to fluctuate, sometimes wildly. Many times I have seen someone with steady acid pH who have what we call a spike, where the pH jumps up into the high alkaline zone one morning or evening, only to resume its regular acid pH later. Other people are so demineralized that their pH readings follow no pattern, and jump all over the place without rhyme or reason. Another divergence from standard natural health philosophy: The pH scale goes from 0-14, so in the laboratory, balanced pH would be 7.0. Dr. Reams taught that this was true for chemicals, but in the human body, balanced pH was 6.4. While most natural practitioners would be happy to see someone with a pH of 7.0, I would see them heading towards a number of significant health problems. This is also why pH paper should measure in .2 increments. With standard .5 increment litmus paper, you would not be able to determine 6.4, and indeed a 6.5 reading on litmus paper could actually be as high as 6.9. Why urine AND saliva? According to Reams, the saliva pH indicates the state of the minerals in the body (also the quantity and even which minerals). An overly alkaline saliva pH indicates the bodys minerals are floating around and are not being utilized. It also indicates what is left in the bodys mineral reserve (what a person was born with to draw from). The urine pH indicates the amount and kind of minerals leaving the body. When both urine and saliva are 6.4, it means there are adequate minerals to meet the bodys needs, and the correct amount of mineral debris is leaving the body. You may notice I discuss calciums and the rest of the minerals almost interchangeably. This is because pH measures both of them. A last point of importance: During our lives, pH follows a predictable course. A healthy new-born baby will have double 6.4 pHs (urine and saliva). As this child grows up and his health suffers from the standard North American diet (mineral-poor foods that cause a demineralized condition in his body), his pH will become double-alkaline. Later it will become acid urine/alkaline saliva, then acid saliva/alkaline urine, then double acid, then death. I must hasten to point out that a person can inhabit this double-acid condition for many years before death occurs. This pH progression (or regression) is one the reasons why both urine and saliva should be tested. I recently had a client submit their 6-day testing to me. This woman was a steady sub-5.5 urine pH (5.5 being as low as the pH paper measures), and a steady 6.0 saliva pH. Because of her age (69) I saw cancer in her metabolism. She informed me she had already had cancer. I told her she was always tired. She said, Tell me about it! (In this case, from high blood sugars, not low.) When I mentioned her high blood sugars, she informed me she did, indeed, have diabetes. In her case, along with other specific substances, she is taking two Coral calcium caps plus 2,000 I.U. of Vit D per meal. (Vit D also has an alkalinizing affect on pH.) It is likely she will need to increase the levels of these nutrients if her pH does not respond within the next few weeks. There are other approaches I will consider for her to aid her body, but pH is the first and most immediate one. One more last point: If acid/alkaline-ash foods were what pH was all about, all you would need to do to resolve acid pH would be to stir one or two tbsns of baking soda into some water every day and drink that. In a short time, your pH would be alkaline. Would it mean the pH issue was resolved? Not at all. I think I may have gotten carried away with this post. Sincerely, Terry Chamberlin, B.Sc., C.N.C., Bioanalyst Metabolic Solutions Institute Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia B0S 1M0 Canada 902-584-3810 msi...@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... 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