Today, I'm going to talk about when you shouldn't use stomach acid supplementation, so stay tuned.
Hey there, if you're new here, my name is Amanda Malachesky. I'm a certified functional
nutrition health coach and a digestive and allergy detective. For tips and tricks on how to resolve
your digestive challenges for good, please be sure to subscribe and click the bell to be notified
when I post a new video every week. One of my most popular videos is about how to
use stomach acid to improve your digestive health and with good reason, because stomach acid is an
absolutely key support to improve your digestion, but there are some cases where you shouldn't use
it. By the end of today's video, you'll know when not to use stomach acid and you'll know how to
tell whether or not your body needs it or not. I help clients sort out which digestive supplements
are right for them every single week. And I'd like to help you too, so let's get started.
It's a common recommendation to increase your stomach acid, either with betaine hydrochloride
or lemon juice or Apple cider vinegar. You've probably seen this floating around the internet
and thought, oh my gosh, do I need to do that too? And it really is important because more often
than not, I find that people have low stomach acid and this can slow down your digestion.
It can impede your absorption of certain nutrients like vitamin B12 and iron, and it can also affect
your gallbladder and your pancreas and your digestive enzymes. It is definitely
very important. In my practice, there are four situations where I don't like to recommend stomach
acid until some other healing has taken place. And so I'd like to share those with you now.
Situation number one, where you don't want to use stomach acid is if you regularly and normally
experience a burning or gnawing sensation in your stomach or intestines, or if you've been diagnosed
with ulcers or gastritis, which is basically just an irritation of your stomach lining.
If you increase your stomach acid and you have some of these situations going on, it's likely
that those symptoms will get worse. We definitely want to be moving you in the opposite direction,
right? We want to be improving how you feel. This is a little confusing because you might've
heard the advice that you want to take hydrochloric acid supplement
until you feel a burning sensation in your stomach. And some people have written to me
and told me that they've taken 12 and 15 capsules of hydrochloric acid and haven't noticed anything.
I really think this is just bad advice. I think it's generally fine to stick with the recommended
dosage on those products and only use them if you don't experience burning. If you are feeling
burning from taking HCL, to me, this is a sign that there are some other things that need to
be dealt with and you need to find out what's causing that before you proceed any further.
Similar to number one, you shouldn't use hydrochloric acid if you have active irritated
heartburn. The kind of weird part about this is that heartburn is usually an indicator that your
stomach acid is too low and that the sphincter between your stomach and your esophagus is not
staying closed properly. And stomach acid is one of the things that is responsible for keeping
that sphincter closed. Generally if you have heartburn, this is a sign that you actually do
need to increase your stomach acid, but when you have active symptomatic heartburn is not
the right time, because again, that skin is really irritated and whatever supplement you're using to
help that might actually aggravate it further. You want to wait until the active sensation of
heartburn has decreased, and you can support that by using things like aloe Vera juice,
deglycyrrhizinated licorice, which is also called DGL or Slippery Elm or marshmallow
herbal extracts. These can all just help soothe the inner lining of your gut skin to protect it
so that you can use HCL safely without irritating the skin further. Definitely wait
until the sensation of heartburn has resolved before you start adding HCL supplementation.
Situation number three where you should not use stomach acid supplementation is if you
have been diagnosed with or suspect that you have an H. Pylori infection. H. Pylori
is a bacteria that lives in the lining of the stomach. As H. Pylori does this,
it damages the structures that secrete stomach acid. And so when you have an H. Pylori infection,
your stomach acid naturally decreases, and this can start to cause problems like heartburn, but
H. Pylori is also one of the main causes of ulcers. If you increase stomach acid,
while you have an active H. Pylori infection, this will drive the H. Pylori deeper into your stomach
lining. We really want to avoid doing this. By the way, like I said, H. Pylori is one of
the main causes of stomach ulcers. And so if you have ulcers, but you haven't been screened
for H. Pylori infection, I strongly recommend you talk to your doctor or other practitioner
about how to get screened for H. Pylori. You can request an H. Pylori breath test,
or you can also do a GI map stool test. If you need a little bit more information about lab
testing for gut health, you can check out my earlier video, gut microbiome testing for IBS.
Okay. Situation number four, and this is a little bit more obscure and probably won't apply to most
of you, but I do want to share it just in case this is you. Most stomach acid supplements are
made with betaine HCL, betaine hydrochloride, and the betaine can help speed up the inner cellular
detoxification process that's happening all the time in your body, and it's called methylation,
and the betaine can speed this process up. Sometimes supplementing with betaine hydrochloride
can increase some of these toxic symptoms like increased brain fog, anxiety, or depression
or fatigue. If you notice that when you use HCL supplementation, you start to get an increase
in some of these kinds of symptoms, it might be a sign from your body that
this really isn't a good idea right now. If one of these cases is true for you,
but you still feel like you actually need to supplement your stomach acid. What do you do?
Like I mentioned earlier, you want to include some things in your routine that are soothing for the
inner lining of your stomach and your intestines. And my favorites in this case are things like aloe
Vera juice, which you can get at any health food store. Deglycyrrhizinated licorice,
which is modified licorice that doesn't cause the blood pressure effects that unaltered licorice
causes, and it usually comes in chewable tablets or in a powder form or capsules.
These are really awesome and easy, and they taste good too, if you like licorice.
Also, things like Slippery Elm or marshmallow, which are herbs that you can buy at an herb store,
or maybe at a Whole Foods health food store. You can make a tea out of them or use them in a couple
of different ways. These items basically create a soothing mucus layer inside your gut to protect it
from the burning effects of your stomach acid and other things. Sometimes when we've been sick for
a long time in our gut, that mucus layer has kind of broken down. And so there's no more protective
layer in there. We can have trouble with things like ulcers and gastritis or just skin irritation.
You might have to use some of these items consistently to really see a difference.
But if you use them consistently, you might then find that you are able to eventually tolerate the
stomach acid supplements and that's just going to catapult your healing even that much further.
Now, if none of these situations apply to you and you have consistent or chronic digestive problems,
chances are that supplementing your stomach acid would actually be a really good idea for you.
I invite you to please check out my earlier video, how to increase stomach acid for digestive health.
And I also have another video called stomach acid Q and A, where I talk about
some other questions that people often have about stomach acid supplementation.
Have you used stomach acid supplements? Tell us all about it in the comments. Okay. Avoid stomach
acid supplementation if you have active ulcers or irritation, if you have active, painful heartburn,
if you have a diagnosis of H. Pylori or you suspect you might have H. Pylori,
or if you notice any direct worsening of your symptoms from taking stomach acid.
Now, if you're confused about some of the more nuances about how to use these items
properly or what sequence to use them in, there's two main ways that I can help.
The first is I invite you to download a copy of my free gut guide called Roadmap To Gut Recovery.
Inside the guide is the step-by-step process that I walk my clients through to help them
resolve their digestive challenges. And it also includes access to some of the tools that I use
to help them figure out what's happening and what they need to do. You can download that for free by
going to confluencenutrition.com/roadmap. And I'll be sure to leave a link for that below this video.
Or if you've already tried a lot of different things and you're left feeling kind of confused
about what do I do next? How do I order things? How do I sequence things? What's next for me? I
do work one-on-one with clients. I invite you to schedule a free 30-minute assessment session with
me. We'll have a chance to look at your case and contemplate what your next best steps might be,
and you can consider whether or not you'd like to move forward with working with me.
You can schedule that free 30-minute assessment session by going to
confluencenutrition.com/contact. And I'll look forward to seeing you on my schedule.
I hope this video helped you understand when you should and should not use stomach acid.
Even though everybody says it's right for everyone, it's actually not,
so we do need to listen to our bodies and work from there. If you like this video,
please consider sharing it, liking it, or forwarding it to someone who
could benefit from it. And I will look forward to seeing you all next time.