Why Stomach Acid is Good For You!

WHY STOMACH ACID IS GOOD FOR YOU!

The Gray Man

by Jonathan Wright, MD, and Lane Lenard, PhD

At the Tahoma Clinic he was known as the 'Gray Man.' He got the nickname after Sue, the receptionist, and Barbara, the nurse, agreed that they'd never seen anyone with his skin tones. Anyone could see it. Although he was Caucasian, his visible skin was devoid of any pink tones. He scarcely had any brown hue. Instead, he was a peculiar whitish gray. I've not seen anyone with the same pigmentation before or since.

The sixty-one-year-old Gray Man hadn't come in because he was looking gray, although his wife had mentioned it to him 'a time or two.' Actually, he explained, he didn't have any symptoms or illnesses; he was just plain tired. Really tired.

Further questioning turned up little but the fatigue. In the past, he'd had chronic indigestion and intermittent but persistent heartburn. He noted that both symptoms had gone on for over twenty years, and that he'd taken 'plenty of those Tums and Rolaids and other antacids' since his forties. However, he reported he hadn't had any indigestion or heartburn problem at all since he'd started taking that 'new prescription acid-blocker stuff, Tagamet,' which he'd been taking every day since it came out in 1977. By the time he appeared at the clinic, he guessed he'd been taking the drug every day for seven years.

'You know that stomachs are naturally designed to secrete enough acid to turn even large meals into the equivalent of soup?' I asked.

'Yeah, I know that, I guess, but all my doctors told me that my indigestion and heartburn were due to too much acid. It just made good sense to take something that would knock down the excess acid,' he replied.

'Did anyone ever actually measure the amount of acid in your stomach?'

'No, but the symptoms sure have gone away since I started the Tagamet.'

'And a river will dry up if we stop all the rain. Maybe that's an advantage for a little while if the river has been flooding, but what happens if we stop the rain permanently?'

He thought for a moment. 'Permanently?'

'Well, seven years, at least.'

'Quite a drought. Nothing'll grow, for sure.'

'Right. And if we shut off, or neutralize, our stomachs' natural acidity for more than brief intervals, there's bound to be consequences. First, we don't break down foods as well, and many nutrients - especially essential amino acids, certain minerals, and at least two B vitamins - aren't as available as they're supposed to be. So they don't get absorbed into our bloodstreams, and our cells don't get the normal amounts of nutrients they need to keep them going.

'Second, when that 'acidified soup' empties out of our stomachs into the upper part of the small intestine - the duodenum - it triggers the secretion of hormones that in turn stimulate the pancreas and gallbladder to make, or release, their own digestive secretions, including enzymes, bicarbonate, and bile. Without this 'acid trigger,' these hormones are under produced, and the subsequent stages in digestion don't work as well as they're supposed to, either. This means that another whole group of nutrients becomes less available to our cells.'

'So it's like a cascade of events,' said the Gray Man, starting to catch on. 'If the acidity isn't there, then other parts of digestion aren't triggered properly, either.'

'Exactly, and there may be many other 'cascades' in the digestive stream that we still don't know about that might be affected.'

'No wonder I'm tired,' he said. 'I've been literally drying up a lot of my digestion for years. Why didn't anyone tell me about this?'

'Don't know. It's all right there in the basic textbooks for medical students. But that's not all. The same textbooks list a third consequence of low, or no, stomach acid production. Let's think about it this way: What happens if I add bacteria or parasites to an acid solution in a test tube?'

'Not sure, but I'd guess a lot of them'll die.'

'Right. They die. Textbooks of gastroenterology - the medical specialty that concentrates on the digestive system - actually refer to stomach acid as the 'acid barrier' to intestinal tract infection. Also, everyone knows that farther down, the intestines are home to a wide variety of microorganisms - sometimes called intestinal microflora (literally tiny plants) - which help with digestion, secrete a few important vitamins, and generally behave themselves.

'But if the acid-alkaline balance--technically called the 'pH' - isn't just right, then many of these 'friendly' microorganisms literally die out and are replaced by not-so-friendly germs. At best, these unfriendly microorganisms aren't as helpful to us as the friendly ones. At worst, some of them may excrete substances that are toxic to our own body cells, which are absorbed and spread all around our bodies.'

The Gray Man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 'So by keeping my stomach acid low to prevent heartburn, not only have I been semi-starving myself for the last seven years, but also I may be encouraging toxins from my gut to enter my system?'

'Afraid so.'

'Could this be why I've been so tired all the time?'

'Very likely. Let's work on restoring your normal digestion as much as possible. We'll try to make up for all those years of malnutrition, and if necessary we'll do something to restore your normal gut flora. Then we'll see what happens with your fatigue.'

'I guess the first thing is to stop this Tagamet. But then I'll have indigestion and heartburn all over again, won't I?'

'There are natural ways we can try to stop indigestion and heartburn without blocking stomach acid.'

'How?'

'First, we need to find out if your stomach really is making too much acid. Chances are very high - over 90 percent - that the real culprit is likely underproduction of stomach acid. Heartburn means that some of that small amount of acid is turning up in the wrong place, causing the burning feeling. Let's wait until we do a test or two.'

Like the overwhelming majority of people with indigestion and heartburn, the Gray Man soon found that although he had been suffering from heartburn for years, his stomach had actually been under producing acid all that time. By replacing the missing stomach acid with capsules containing betaine hydrochloride (a safe, convenient, inexpensive source of stomach acid, or hydrochloric acid - HCl) and the digestive enzyme pepsin with every meal, he was soon able to eliminate his symptoms. His program also included replacement digestive enzymes, intestinal flora normalizers (also called probiotics), and supplements of various amino acids, vitamins, and minerals that he had not been absorbing properly due to his low acid condition.

Slowly but surely, his gray skin color returned to normal, healthy-looking brown and pink skin tones. His fatigue dissipated, too, replaced by increasing energy. His wife also noted an improvement in his mood and attitude. Six months later, he declared himself back to normal.

The only thing entirely atypical about the Gray Man's--John's - case was his skin color. As noted above, I've never seen anything like it before or since. But the rest of his story--indigestion and heartburn caused by underproduction of normal stomach acid - is absolutely typical. Since the 1970s, I've worked with literally thousands of individuals with one or another variation of the same story--indigestion and heartburn, frequently accompanied by bloating, belching, gas, constipation, occasionally loose bowels--caused by a failure or partial failure of normal stomach function. (Stomach overproduction, or excess acid production, is actually quite rare.) Most of these individuals had been compounding their health problems by taking antacids or acid-blocking drugs either on their own or on the advice of health care practitioners.

Parts of this article are excerpts from Jonathan Wright, MD and Lane Lenard, PhD's new book 'Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You.' which is available at www.amazon.com.

In 'Why Stomach Acid is Good For You,' Dr. Jonathan Wright and Dr. Lane Lenard explain normal stomach function and many manifestations of 'stomach failure.' They cover health problems commonly associated with poor stomach function. They describe conventional treatments for the mythical illness known as 'acid indigestion,' and then the preferred natural alternatives. As you'll soon find, this is more than just another book about indigestion. For many of us, this is also a for-real guide to anti-aging and longevity: How can we expect our cells and our whole bodies to 'live long and well' if they're chronically malnourished?

The information in this article is not intended to provide personal medical advice, which should be obtained from a medical professional, and has not been approved by the U.S. FDA.

Copyright 2001 by Vitamin Research Products, Inc. (VRP) The use of information found in Vitamin Research News for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission from VRP.