Dentalnews (en)

Let’s make our bodies less ‘acidic’!

The media are full of ads on how to „purify and detoxify“ your body or remove excess acids from it. Is it even possible for our bodies to have too many acids or bases in them?
Yes, but if that ever happens then you’re dead.

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The electrolytic balance and the related pH value of your body is very closely monitored and regulated by your lungs and kidneys. A normal pH value ranges between 7.35-7.42.

The pH value can neither get too low nor too high in a living organism, because the proteins in the blood would fail – they lose their 3-dimensional form and start to form clumps (coagulate) and become useless. Much the same thing can be observed when you cook chicken soup and a brown scum starts to form on the top – these are coagulated proteins.
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So rest assured, if you are at all capable of reading this article than you and your body are not overly ‘acidic’, although you may feel irritated for other reasons!

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Can your intestines fill up with excess waste?

No! Our intestinal membranes are renewed every 3-5 days, the small intestine taking slightly longer than the large intestine.
Today we will start at the end of our digestive system – in the intestines!

Simply think of the upper layer of the intestinal membrane as consisting of many little cells, which are stacked on top of each other. New cells form in the base layer and move to the top, pushing away the old cells in the process. The more roughage we eat, the more cells get „rubbed off“ – a kind of peeling.
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Now it’s obvious that these kinds of „cleansing“ treatments – which require days of drinking only fruit or vegetable juices are actually counter-productive, as the „peeling effect“ of roughage is lost. Although protrusions may form  – known as diverticules, they are also not exactly conducive to cleansing.
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What are diverticules?
Our skin ages, and so do our organs, the muscle network (2) which surrounds the intestinal membrane (3) develops tears, through which the membrane sometimes protrudes – known as a pseudo-diverticule (1).
If the entire intestinal wall protrudes, both membrane and muscle layer, then this is a true diverticule (4). Feces rarely accumulates in the diverticules of the large intestine, as these are too small, but if it does, then the whole area gets inflamed – and then you simply have a painful inflammation of the large intestine.

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The feces, intestine and purification business is doing quite well, the whole terminology and topic scream „slag“. And if we just repeat it to ourselves often enough, we start believing in it … we are carrying around excess substances!
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But our bodies do not quite work this way – there is no way for ‘slag’ to accumulate … and thus no need to ‘flush out’ our intestines! Many people confuse the increased level of alertness (vigilance)when hungering with “cleanliness” and feeling tired after a meal (postprandial tiredness) as an indication of excess waste and “slag”. But these are two normal and ancient  vegetative mechanisms of our body – no food -> greater alertness -> better hunting. Eating -> exhaution -> rest -> more energy for digestion.

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Maybe the best way to avoid “excess waste” in industrialized countries is to eat less, and stick to a more balanced diet, which is also better for our teeth!

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