Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplashby Mary Gladish | Featured Contributor
For decades the catch phrase ‘you are what you eat’ has been a staple in the health industry. Have you ever taken the time to think about your cells and energy that make up your body? We all know we have an autonomic nervous system that just works to keep us alive. Have you ever looked at how or what impacts your autonomic function of the body? What impacts, enhances or inhibits your cellular environment and how can you take control of your automatic systems.
The way I look at health is you are only has healthy as your weakest cell, when you heal that cell the rest of the cells heal and flourish as well. Science does not know exactly how many cells make up the human body yet it’s estimated about 30-40 trillion cells. As a society we tend to get lost in the few bad cells we have and focus on trying to make them work artificially. Today we are going to take a look at what impacts your cells and what you can do to repair them to ‘normal’ function on your own.
Let’s start with the basics; your cellular environment is created to flourish on an alkaline basis. The pH, “potential of hydrogen” is a logarithmic scale used in chemistry to specify the acidity and basicity of an aqueous solution. The human body has different pH balance throughout its systems, such as, blood (serum) and bodily tissues pH should stay around 7.4 while pH of the stomach must stay around 2 to properly breakdown food. According to the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), acidosis is characterized by a pH of 7.35 or lower. Alkalosis is characterized by a pH level of 7.45 or higher.
Without getting crazy scientific why does this matter? Your body pH is a way to measure how healthy your cells are, nothing good comes from being too acidic or too alkaline, although acidic is worse. The lifestyles of today cater to breaking down our pH balance thus creating a more acidic cellular environment. Acidosis, comes if two forms either metabolic or respiratory. Metabolic acidosis starts in the kidneys; it occurs when they can’t eliminate enough acid or when they get rid of too much base. As the disruption of the body’s pH balance happens conditions and problems start occurring in the body’s organs. Respiratory acidosis is when a buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood produces a shift in the body’s pH balance to more acidic. This is why what you eat matters, it all goes back to energy. Everything you eat has its own pH balance and its own energy base.
The founder of the renowned Hippocrates Health Institute, Ann Wigmore states “the food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful for of medicine or the slowest form of poison”. When a body is over acidic it creates an environment that bacteria, yeast and illness thrive where as an alkaline environment does the exact opposite. Dr. Otto Warburg won the Noble Peace in 1931 for his discovery “NO diseases, including cancer, can exist in an alkaline environment’. That’s a pretty big finding back in 1931 and opens the door to quite the pyridine shift on health if you chose to look into it. It’s more that we go into here yet it’s the foundation of why what you eat matters and why you should strive to create a more alkaline environment for your cells.
There are several easy and inexpensive ways to test your cellular pH, saliva and urine test strips. You can also get an idea of how acidic your body is by your general health. If you find yourself getting sick frequently, acid reflux, coughing, yeast/fungal infections, weight gain, kidney infections, premature aging, fatigue and lack of energy are the first symptoms you are overloading your body with acidic causing foods. Here is a quick general list of acid forming foods, processed foods, meat, alcohol, dairy, artificial sweeteners, peanuts, white rice and bread. Please don’t freak out, this does not mean you have to go vegan unless you want too. Moderation and balance are the keys to everything. When you start to look at food, remember it’s not what the food is like on the outside but what it does metabolically in your body. There are an enormous amount of list out there listing exactly what pH each food has and others classifying acidic verse alkaline foods so I’m not going to go into great detail here. I will leave you with this, lemons are a perfect example, they are citrus and considered acidic yet in the human body it is one of the most alkalizing foods you can consume. So much so I very rarely drink water without fresh squeezed organic lemon in it; I use half a lemon for 32oz of water. If you only change one thing about your diet let it be this, filtered water with fresh squeezed lemon, drink half your body weight in ounces of water a day. You will start to feel better; your energy will start to increase.
Now that the basic foods are taken care stay tuned as we start looking at the environment around you. Your cells absorb EMF’s, and the energy around you these also have a negative interaction with the body’s pH balance and health.
Dr. Mary Gladish, a Health Improvement Strategist, Wellness Physician, mind-body expert, specializing in optimizing energy, health writer and podcaster.
Dr. Gladish’s focus is on motivating individuals to adjust their daily regimes and forsake unhealthy disease causing habits is the one of the most perplexing aspects of being a physician. Disease is not normal. We are wonderfully designed to live healthy, energetic and vibrant lives. However, we have been conditioned to believe that disease is genetic and normal. We have a false understanding of what nutrition and energy are and how it relates to our body’s cellular environment. The overall health of the individual cell makes up the health of the body. Many of the solutions are actually very simple and it is extremely sad to see so many people suffering needlessly. My goal is to help people find their healthy and their vibe.
