Unlike current commercialized “health plans” which cost an arm and a leg, your body’s health plan doesn’t cost anything other than normal food costs. There are no premiums to pay, no co-payments. Your own health plan moderates your system, is a back-up safety net, and insures a healthy and long life.
“Yeah…sure” you say. “If it’s so great, why hasn’t my doctor told me about it?” Because doctors are taught in medical school to treat patients with drugs where the profits are. Anything natural can’t be patented so there is no interest in it. Indeed, drug companies even discredit natural elements and processes any way they can, from funding studies of natural components set up to fail, to demanding of the FDA greater scrutiny over natural supplements. All’s fair in the health business.
Your own internal health system, however, knows more about your internal workings than any drug-pushing company or prescribing doctor. After all, it’s been evolving for some 600 million years, ever since the Cambrian geologic period when life first appeared in the oceans.
It’s called the pH system, with the pH symbol technically denoting the hydrogen (H+) ion (acid) concentration in grams per liter of a solution and expressing relative acidity and alkalinity. A pH of 7 is regarded as neutral with the H+ (hydrogen) acidic ions balanced by the OH- (hydroxyl) alkaline ions. A pH number less than 7 is considered acidic while a number of more than 7 is considered alkaline. At all times, the blood and intracellular fluids must have a pH of approximately 7.4. Both a highly acidic pH (a pH of 4 being more acidic than a pH of 5) and a highly alkaline pH (a pH of 8 being more alkaline than a pH of 7.4) can result in death. Consequently, your body does everything it can to maintain the proper pH of 7.4 in your fluids if excess acidity appears. When it does, the body’s alkaline response to excess acid is to neutralize the acid to keep you alive. If adequate alkaline ions are not present in the fluids to neutralize acids, other cells and organs in the body are scrounged for their available alkaline ions, usually calcium, magnesium or potassium (with the first two being preferred) to meet the acidic crisis. It cannot be overemphasized that the body’s fluids’ 7.4 pH has to be maintained at all times or disease and eventually death will result.
One has to ask here, why is it that the system always has to be slightly alkaline? Why didn’t it evolve to be slightly acidic instead? The answer to those questions really underlies the fundamental cause of disease. And to answer those questions, one first needs to understand the role of acidic and alkaline ions in the cells and fluids of the body. At all times, acidity is the natural activator of the cells to carry out its life-giving functions. It stimulates, it excites, even over excites. Hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters are all acidic compounds involved in instigating acidic activity to build cells, provide energy, pass brain signals, repair all breaks, fight infections, etc.
Alkalinity, on the other hand, does exactly the opposite by neutralizing acids. It slows activity, inhibits the actions of hormones, enzymes, etc., and calms cellular actions even to the point of coma. The latter is the danger of too much alkalinity while the danger of too much acidity is extreme over excitement leading to inflammation, disease or even death of the cell.
The reason for disease or even cellular death is that the hyperactivity of the cell due to excess acidity uses up cellular nutrients (the biochemicals needed to run the cell) faster than normal. In like fashion, if you want to make an automobile go faster, you step on the accelerator pedal which increases the gas and the spark plug activity. You go faster as the engine pistons burn the increased gas faster. If you maintain the higher speed, you’ll eventually run out of gas (faster) and the engine stops. If you ease up on the pedal, however, the car slows down and the gas supply lasts longer.
The same is true for the body’s cells. Acid is the body’s spark plug. The more acidity, the faster the cell runs, the sooner you run out of nutrients (the gas) and the sooner the cell stops (dies) or becomes diseased.
Alkalinity, by neutralizing the acid, slows the cell activity (the same as taking your foot off the gas pedal). Nutrients are not used up as fast and the cell runs longer (resulting in greater longevity). Alkalinity, in essence, is the moderator of the cell’s activity, analogous to a governor on a car engine regulating the car’s speed by controlling the amount of gas fed into the engine.
Which is the answer to the original question of why the body’s system evolved to be slightly alkaline rather than acidic. If it were always slightly acidic, there would be no alkaline reserve to govern cell activity. The cells would continue to operate faster than normal using up nutrients faster, leading to early malfunction of the cell (disease) or death. The organism would die before its time.
Therefore, it cannot be emphasized enough that the alkaline ions in the form of calcium, magnesium and potassium minerals (the healthy trio) must be replenished daily in the food we ingest. That is the only requirement for a person to enjoy the benefit of their body’s own health plan. Eat foods rich in alkaline minerals and avoid excessive acidic foods. It is not much to ask for, but almost all Americans do not do it and this produces a short, unhealthy life with high medical and drug costs the inevitable result. The using up of alkaline ions without adequate daily replenishment is, in essence, aging on a daily basis.