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Holiday Energy Levels and Some Talk about pH

Happy Holidays. And how is your adrenal fatigue coming along? It's rampant right now and the adrenal support products are flying off my shelves. Answer the following questions and if any one of them is "Yes", you probably need some help. Not sleeping well? Feel bone tired? Can't think straight? Coming down with everything sneezed at you? Are you experiencing musculoskeletal stuff like back pain or neck pain for no good reason? Or maybe just plain weakness? Or how about feeling dizzy when you stand up? Do you crave salt? Sugar?

Inasmuch as it just might be your thyroid gland going on strike instead of your adrenal gland (and it could be both) answer the following questions. If anyone of them is "Yes", you could have a sluggish thyroid: Is your hair falling out? Are you bone weary? Are you gaining weight? Are you depressed? Are you retaining fluid? Are your eyes puffy? Is your skin especially dry? Are you constipated? Do you just feel weird?

There are a couple of things you can do for a sluggish thyroid. First of all, you should get your TSH measured via blood work. In the meantime, eliminate eating anything raw in the brassica family: Raw broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, etc. will depress thyroid function. Cooked is fine. Eat iodine containing foods like sea vegetables. Take your Min-Tran which contains kelp. Eliminate all saturated fats for awhile as they tend to inhibit thyroid function. Eliminate soy. Soy can even cause a goiter. Add fiber, eat radishes, including daikon, and add one teaspoon of coconut oil every day.

But you could also have me test you for a sick thyroid. The thyroid gland can act as a septic tank for dysbiosis in the body, and I often find fungus, molds, yeast, chemicals, bacteria and/or viruses stored in the gland in which case we have to remove those interlopers to re-establish optimum function while supporting the thyroid gland itself with targeted nutrition. I have great supplements to assist you with a sluggish thyroid.

Now for a brief discussion of pH and acid/alkali balance: There is a ton of misunderstanding about this with the majority of folk suggesting that anyone not totally alkaline is walking on all fours, when actually each part of your body requires a different pH in order for it to work properly. You just don't want to be "alkaline" all over and being "alkaline" is not necessarily healthy. The biggest misinformation I hear is that when you pee on your pH strip in the morning, (What? You don't do this?) you should be striving for an alkaline reading of, say over 7. But here is the true skinny: When the urine is consistently alkaline, you will put yourself at risk for kidney stones and UTI's. Alkaline urine is not necessarily healthy.

You certainly don't want an alkaline gut milieu, since most sickness occurs when your gut is too alkaline. The pH for digestion should be this: Your stomach is where you break down and dissolve food so it should be very acid - like a 2 - and this is why sometimes I suggest that you take digestive enzymes which include hydrochloric acid. This is also why heartburn hurts - when all that acid comes back up into your throat where it's not supposed to be. Your small intestine should be alkaline and your urine and bowels are best on the border of acid/alkaline, even switching back and forth as the buffering systems require.

Your blood is another story altogether. It maintains a very specific pH of about 7.4 which is alkaline and if it varies just a tiny bit, your body will go into shock and do anything it can to normalize the pH. In fact, you will die if your blood becomes too acid or alkaline and this is a very narrow range: You will go toes up at 7 on the acid end of the scale and toes up at 7.7on the alkaline end of the scale. The body uses an automatic balancing process which takes from many of the body's buffer systems - e.g. one is taking the calcium from your bones - to keep your blood at this healthy pH level.

"The proponents of the "alkaline theory" state that infection, arthritis and cancer all grow in an alkaline environment but modern research disagrees. Dr. Jarvis who wrote a classic book called Folk Medicine suggested that the ideal pH medium for growing harmful bacteria was an alkaline pH of 7.2-7.8. This is exactly the opposite of what the - pH experts' say." Craig Reese, D.C. Holiday Newsletter.

So, I agree with Dr. Reese, and suggest you just "fuggeddaboutit" - i.e. the dreaded pH thing - and just eat good, live food, organic as you can, as little processed as you can, include a raw salad a day, and eat the whole spectrum of the foods available to all of us, like meat, veggies, fruits, nuts etc. Eliminate sugar, alcohol and bad carbs and you will be just fine. You really don't have to measure your pH on a strip every morning looking anxiously for the magical alkaline pH and you really don't have to purchase alkalinizing water filters or products or worry about your pH in any way shape or form.

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