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The most common form of digestive disorders is excess stomach acid. But when there is not enough of it, digestion also fails.
The symptoms of low acidity and acidity may be similar to each other. Patients most often complain of unpleasant symptoms soon after a meal. These symptoms include a feeling of fullness, pain in the stomach and surrounding area, and the feeling that there is a heavy stone in the stomach. There may be flatulence, gas, heartburn and nausea or problems with the gastrointestinal motility: diarrhea or constipation. It happens that diarrhea and constipation alternate. Diarrhea often lasts longer, making the patient weaker, and constipation is so severe that it is necessary to help the body deal with the problem.
Symptoms and consequences of acidosis
However, dyspepsia is only a symptom of a problem associated with disorders of hydrochloric acid secretion – there is too little of it to digest food well. This is called acidosis. Dyspepsia is a symptom that patients experience on a regular basis. There are also symptoms of low acidity that only become apparent when the low acidity lasts for a long time. These include food allergies, iron deficiency, weak and brittle nails and hair, skin problems, parasitic infections, and intestinal microflora disorders. There may even be anemia or problems with the nervous system! Where do such problems come from? When the stomach produces too little digestive juice, the food cannot be digested thoroughly. Those ingredients that are hard to digest or have not been properly served (undercooked, not chewed well) will only be partially processed, which is necessary to be fully utilized and assimilated. Hence the deficiencies – and the most severely affected by iron levels is iron, which is obtained from hard-to-digest meat. However, there may also be disorders in the absorption of magnesium, zinc (hence, for example, problems with nails, hair and skin) and calcium. It also turns out that the right amount of hydrochloric acid is necessary for the proper absorption of B vitamins, especially vitamin B12. And when we have a problem with their absorption, we can also suffer from anemia, weakness or disorders of the nervous system. We may also have poorer resistance to infection, because vitamin C absorption is worse in people with low stomach acid.
Parasitic infections or disturbed intestinal flora can also be caused by low acid levels in the stomach. It must be remembered that, in addition to digestion, hydrochloric acid is one of the barriers preventing the invasion of pathogenic microorganisms that have entered the body through the oral route. It kills most viruses, bacteria or many parasitic cysts. If there is not enough of it, it does not fulfill its protective function, unfriendly microbes enter the body, which disturb the delicate digestive balance in the intestines.
Digestive acids in the stomach
The correct acid-base pH, or pH that should be present in the stomach, is low: its value should be between 1,5 and 2,5. This reaction is only ensured by the right amount of digestive acids. If there are too many of them – the reaction drops below the norm; if there are too few of them – grows unhealthy. Meanwhile, hydrochloric acid is essential for the digestion of proteins and plays an important role in the process of mineral absorption.
Digestive processes “behave” similarly to other processes in our body: everything works smoothly in a young body, and functions a little worse with age. This phenomenon also applies to the secretion of hydrochloric acid. Research has shown that after the age of 60, as much as 60 percent. people complain of symptoms of acidosis. After eighty, this number grows up to 80 percent! However, problems with ischemia may also affect us earlier – if we suffer from long-term infection with Helicobacter Pylori, we have chronic anemia, or if untreated or recurrent gastritis lining the stomach. It also happens that ischemia is the body’s reaction to long-term, untreated hyperacidity or it develops on the nervous background.
Treatment of acidosis
Unfortunately, treating acidosis is not easy, because although it is easy to reduce gastric acid secretion, it is difficult to force the stomach to work harder. Therapy consists of two strategies: on the one hand, it is to shape the diet in such a way that even a more “lazy” stomach can cope with digestion; on the other hand, we try to stimulate the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach, e.g. by drinking herbal teas.
Diet for gastric acidity
The first step is to track down the troublemakers. These are foods that require large amounts of gastric juices in the digestion process. These include fatty, fried and thick foods that contain large amounts of animal protein. Therefore, doctors advise patients with ischemia to consume less milk and dairy products, carefully dose eggs and eat meat only in small amounts – about 100 g during one meal. This is important because it is the digestive process of meat that fares the worst with a small amount of hydrochloric acid. And if it’s not digested, it lingers in the stomach and fermenting – hence the feeling of overflow, bloating and gas. It is recommended to reach for delicate meat – veal, poultry, fish. Foods should be boiled or stewed, finely shredded, preferably in a mushy or liquid state. This makes it easier for the stomach to work.
The second important issue is the way you eat food. Each bite should be chewed long and thoroughly. Meals should be eaten regularly, at fixed times, when the stomach starts secreting acid “out of habit” in the time we usually eat. Meals should be small but eaten frequently – preferably five times a day. We should also forget about drinking before and during eating. Drinking with a meal dilutes the digestive acids, further weakening their strength.
Dietary supplements for digestion
If the acidity has exhausted our body of micronutrients and vitamins, it is worth supplementing them. Attention! The appropriate supplement should help us choose a specialist, doctor or pharmacist! It is also worth having at home herbal teas that improve and regulate digestion, e.g. teas with peppermint, St. John’s wort, thyme, water spicy knotweed, yellow gentian root, marigold flower, wormwood herb, anise traveler or garden fennel. Drinking them should become a habit for us. We can also buy a preparation containing plant digestive enzymes, e.g. pancreatin, papain, lipase, pepsin or betaine. They will help our own enzymes work, greatly improving digestion, especially digesting and breaking down the most difficult proteins.