Greetings.
Eric Bakker, New Zealand naturopath.
Thanks for coming back and checking out my video.
I often get asked by people about how do I assess my stomach?
How do I find out if I've got the correct amount of stomach acid?
How can I know if I've got enough and not too little?
Too little stomach acid, we call hypochlorhydria, or not enough.
No stomach acid we call achlorhydria, which is a big problem for really older people in
particular.
I remember in 2003, I went to Seattle and I saw an interesting...
I had a conference there with a whole lot of other doctors.
I think it was called Nutritional Medicine, Nutritional Therapy and Medical Practice,
Dr. Jonathan Wright and Dr. Allen Gavey.
Jonathan Wright is an incredible doctor, and he actually wrote a whole book on low stomach
acid.
He was a very big fan of testing everybody for gastric function to make sure that the
stomach worked properly.
If you've got hypochlorhydria, or low stomach acid, it's going to really affect your health
so bad.
You've got no idea how bad it can affect you.
You need to have a PH in the stomach of around 2-4, often around 3.5, which is quite acid.
If you don't have an acid forming stomach, it means that you're not breaking food down
properly.
It means that everything downstream is going to be affected, and ultimately you're going
to get tired, you know, you're going to have all kinds of problems, huge health problems
as a result of that, so here are my four methods, or my take on four methods of how you can
asses the stomach properly for acid levels.
The first test is the most expensive option, but probably also the most accurate.
It's called the Heidleberg test.
Here, basically on an empty tummy, usually in the morning, you've got to swallow this
tiny capsule.
This tiny little capsule contains a radio transmitter inside it.
It's an incredibly high-tech little gadget.
It's very small, so don't worry, you won't choke on it.
It's an expensive test.
It's about $350 to do the test, and it's probably not covered by your insurance company; but
about 130-140 studies say that this is the best test in terms of how accurate it is.
So you drink 4-6 ounces of water with some baking soda in there after you swallow that
capsule.
What the capsule does, is it starts assessing what's happening in your stomach as that baking
soda is going in there and its looking, and it's giving constant readings as long as that
stays in the stomach it will keep reading, and then of course, you're going to pass it
out, and it will be collected and all these readings can be done.
So, best test, accurate test, expensive test.
The second test is a home test, it's very cheap.
It's a couple dollars.
It's a baking soda test.
Basically, you're going to put about a quarter to a half a teaspoon of baking soda, you're
going to mix that in a bit of water again, and then you're going to drink first thing
in the morning on an empty stomach.
What should happen, you're either going to belch, or you're not going to belch.
If you belch pretty quick, and if you don't belch pretty quick, it's going to give me
a lot of interesting information.
Healthy people are going to belch pretty quick because they're going to convert that baking
soda into carbon dioxide very fast, so as soon as you drink that, literally before two
or three minutes you should have a bit of a belch.
If you don't belch for three to five minutes, you've got low stomach acid.
This is no conversion to carbon dioxide that... so, that's a problem.
The third test is the Betaine Hydrochloride test, Betaine HCL test.
You're going to have a meal, just a meal on its own containing about 6 ounces of good
quality meat, some chicken, more perfectly some steaks and beef.
YOu're going to cut that up and eat that and halfway during the meal, you're going to swallow
one capsule of Betaine HCL.
There are many different brands that will make this, Douglas Laboratories, Thorne Research.
There are several companies that make Betaine HCL, so get a potent one and swallow one capsule
in the middle of that high-protein meal.
Now, there are two outcomes.
You're either going to feel nothing at all, or you're going to feel as you go along the
day after that meal, you're going to feel a bit of heaviness or burning or pain, things
like that.
That usually means that you've got a good level of stomach acid if you feel that sensation
like, oh my gut; but if you feel nothing at all with that, you've got a problem because
you've got low stomach acid.
Alright?
That's your third test.
So no reaction is not good.
A mild reaction will tell you that you've overstepped the mark, you've got too much
acid.
You didn't need that supplement.
The fourth test is the challenge test and I like doing this one regularly on people
to asses what level of hypochlorhydria they've got.
Now you're going to just with breakfast one day take a Betaine HCL capsule, and then with
lunch that same day, you're going to take two, with dinner you're going to take three.
The following day at breakfast you're going to take four, so with each succeeding meal,
you're going to ramp up by one dose until you notice a heaviness behind the sternum,
or pain, heartburn, or some kind of sensation.
Now, I can tell you now that I've seen some people that have to get up to ten, twenty
capsules per meal before they feel anything at all behind there.
The older the person, the more capsules they need generally.
With each decade people need more and more stomach support, so the fourth one will give
you an idea of how flat the stomach is, you know, or how aired up it is.
You shouldn't need any more than 1 capsule per meal.
I think the best one I've seen, the craziest one, was about 120 capsules in a day before
the person could feel anything.
That's seriously bad.
There you have my take on the four different types of tests you can do to assess stomach
acid levels to determine whether you've got hypochlorhydria or not.
Thanks for checking out the video.
If you're interested and you haven't gotten my candida report, please click on the link
in the description box.
Thanks for tuning in.