Hello Health Champions. A lot of people are taking apple cider vinegar to help with weight loss
and insulin resistance but is it okay to take it if you have things like heartburn or GERD?
Today I want to make sure we get that totally cleared up. Coming right up. Hey I'm Dr.
Ekberg. I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly master health
by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell
so you don't miss anything. GERD is an acronym for Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease and if you
look it up you'll probably see something like the following. 1. It's when acid enters the esophagus.
So the esophagus is your food pipe it's where the food comes down when you swallow into the stomach
and if acid is in the stomach and it flows back into the esophagus then that can cause heartburn.
That is correct. Second thing you'll probably hear is that the LES or the lower esophageal sphincter,
which is this little muscle right here, if it's not closing then that allows the back flow of this
acid. And that is also correct. The third thing you probably hear is that it's because there is
too much acid in the stomach and that is just not correct because most people don't have enough
acid. There is something called hypochlorhydria, which simply means - Not enough of hydrochloric
acid and that is extremely common. Your stomach is supposed to contain or produce something called
hydrochloric acid which puts its pH at a very low level. So if the pH is between 1 and 3, which
it's supposed to be in the stomach, that puts it right down here at the bottom of the scale. It's
right above battery acid and this is because the acid is there to help you digest protein.
It's there to kill pathogens. A lot of pathogens will enter through your digestive tract and if you
have a high enough level of acid that will kill them off. It's also there to help you
absorb minerals and some vitamins like B-12 that can only be absorbed appropriately in an acidic
environment so if you don't make enough acid then this stuff isn't going to work. Now if you have
a normal amount of stomach acid this is what's supposed to happen. Your pH stays between 1 and 3.
And this low pH; it signals to the body to close this lower esophageal sphincter to prevent
the back flow. Then you're going to digest protein in a timely fashion. You're going to have
mucus to protect the stomach. The stomach produces mucus that acts like a barrier
against the acid and then if everything is working, the food, the protein is going to move on
through to the small intestine after about two to four hours and in the ideal scenario
everything works. But here's what happens when you have hypochlorhydria - when you don't have enough.
Now your pH is going to be much higher, somewhere between four and six and now this
is not going to provide the proper signals to close that lower esophageal sphincter so
it might remain partially open. You're also going to have a slow and incomplete digestion. It's not
going to happen in a timely fashion. The food is going to be in the stomach much much longer
and this is going to allow the stomach content to reflux - gastroesophageal reflux disease - and
this is going to severely irritate the esophagus because the stomach has this mucus on the lining
but the esophagus doesn't have any of that. So that's why the esophagus gets very very irritated
when it gets acid and now you experience the symptoms of heartburn or GERD. Now if this goes
on for some time you can develop something called Barrett's esophagus. So they send down a little
scope and take pictures and now they see that these cells lining the esophagus don't look
like normal healthy esophageal cells anymore. They're starting to change and at first when they
change it's called metaplasia - changing growth. And if this goes on for a really long time then
they change into something bad called dysplasia which can eventually lead to cancer. What are
the symptoms of hypochlorhydria, of not having enough acid. Well interestingly the first one
is heartburn. The sensation of too much acid is because you don't have enough. Another thing
that can happen quite a bit is that you just don't have any appetite for meat. Your body is
very intelligent so if you can't produce enough stomach acid to break down meat, your body is
going to tell you don't eat it because it's going to cause problems if you can't break it down. Gas
and bloating irritable bowel syndrome again if you can't digest the food properly in the early stages
it's going to cause problems down the road. Thin hair and nails these are all made from proteins so
if you're not breaking down food and utilizing protein then you can't make the tissues that
you want. Leaky gut is very very common and as a result you often have food sensitivities and you
can also start developing autoimmunity. In women it's very common to have hair loss associated
with it and in general you're going to find multiple nutritional deficiencies because if you
can't break down food then you can't absorb all your proteins, your amino acids, iron, minerals
vitamins etc. On top of the symptoms there are some conditions associated with this
and lupus systemic lupus erythematosus which is an autoimmune condition can happen.
Thyroid issues most of which are autoimmune as Hashimoto's. Psoriasis which is not just a skin
condition it's an arthritis it's an inflammatory arthritis it's also an autoimmune condition.
You can have lots of allergies asthma eczema gastritis osteoporosis because bones are mostly
protein. And you can also have pernicious anemia because you need that stomach acid to absorb
B-12 and make blood cells so what causes hypochlorhydria why doesn't the body make this
well hypothyroid when the thyroid slows down everything slows down including the
production of hydrochloric acid you can also have a stomach bug called h pylori helicobacter pylori
which is a nasty bug that gives you ulcers but also convert some of your acid into base so it
basically wrecks your stomach acid you could also have taken too many antacids and this is what
we're going to see in every store there's just yards and yards of antacids because people have
so much of these problems and then they think that oh if I just take an antacid I solve the problem.
No you calm down the symptom temporarily but by taking that antacid you're setting yourself up
for all of the problems all the conditions that we talked about on the previous slide. Stress
is one of the most common cause stress causes everything have you noticed well it's because with
stress your body shifts you have your fight flight system and your feed breed system
your digestive system so when you're in a fight flight mode whether you're running from a lion
or you're just worrying about the bills or the last rude person that you should have told off
in a certain way. Either way it's stress whether it's real or imagined danger and your body is
focusing all its resources on the outside and when it does that it turns off everything to do
with digestion and that's why stress is associated with all digestive issues there is also a strong
association between increasing age and a lowered production of hydrochloric acid and that's just
because most people as they age they degenerate it doesn't mean that age has to cause that
if you stay healthy if you maintain your body remember use it or lose it then you can still
reach a quite advanced age and not be degenerated unfortunately once you have one or more of these
they tend to feed each other in a vicious cycle and that's what makes this problem kind of
tough to get out of sometimes so now that you're starting to understand more about how the stomach
and the digestive system works you can see how apple cider vinegar could actually be beneficial
that its pH is 2.5 so it's right in that range of what the stomach needs to be when you're digesting
protein and even though it seems counterintuitive to some people that it feels like you have too
much acid why would you add more it actually works if you understand what we just talked about
so apple cider vinegar adds natural acid to the system and it helps improve the signaling to close
that lower esophageal sphincter to prevent the backflow and it helps your digestion overall
now what about taking apple cider vinegar if you already have GERD or heartburn well it is
quite safe and most people are going to find that it improves the GERD it's going to go
away or it's going to diminish significantly 90 - 95 percent of people in my office that we put
on either apple cider vinegar or a digestive supplement called betaine hydrochloride which
is basically just stomach acid in a pill. The vast majority get better now if you already have
some irritation if you have an ulcer or you have gastritis if it's just really raw and irritated
then you may notice that it feels a little worse if you take that apple cider vinegar or
the betaine hydrochloride and that just means you're not quite ready for it yet so
you need to start with some soothing digestive enzymes you need to take some digestive aids
that do not have the acid component in it and then later when your digestion improves then you
could try again. Always remember that you don't want to treat the symptom you want to address
the root cause you want to heal the body you want to reduce the stress you're going to give your
body the proper nutrients. Now I understand if you have an extreme case of heartburn that
you probably want to take some antacids you might want to take some Tums but realize that it's not a
solution it will cover up the symptoms but if you keep using it it will set you up for that vicious
cycle and make it harder and harder for your body to function so always address the root cause.
If you enjoy this video and you want to learn more about how the body works and how to get
truly healthy check out that video. Thank you so much for watching I'll see you next time