Low stom­ach acid is a seri­ous con­di­tion.

Stom­ach acid enables break­down of food. Stom­ach acid is the sec­ond stage of diges­tion, after chew­ing. Very high lev­els of acid, pH 1–2, are very impor­tant for this process. Strong stom­ach acids:

• Ion­ize min­er­als to sup­ply min­er­al and prim­i­tive amino acids;
• Kill bac­te­ria, par­a­sites and organ­isms in food to pro­tect the body from inva­sion;
• Sup­plies acid enable the liv­er to dump tox­ins.

Insuf­f­i­cent stom­ach acid, hypochlorhy­dria, enables bac­te­ria, and oth­er organ­isms to sur­vive. Dur­ing diges­tion, these organ­isms fer­ment food and cre­ate car­bon diox­ide. This flow car­ries or per­co­lates, gas­tric acid and food back up the esoph­a­gus which caus­es dis­com­fort, and even­tu­al­ly dam­ages tis­sues in and near the upper diges­tive tract.

Symp­toms and effects:

• Weak, but still caus­tic, stom­ach acid irri­tates the esoph­a­gus caus­ing heart­burn;
• Cas­es exces­sive burp­ing or belch­ing;
• Acid Reflux or GERD, or Gas­troe­sophogeal reflux dis­ease;
• Chron­ic esophogeal irri­ta­tion results in weak­ened tis­sue, result­ing in struc­tur­al dys­func­tion or hia­tus her­nia;
• Per­sis­tent irri­ta­tion can result in malig­nan­cy or esophogeal can­cer.

Per­sis­tent, chron­ic, weak stom­ach acid leads to often seri­ous health con­se­quences result­ing from chron­ic stress metab­o­lism which diverts chorides need­ed for diges­tion to oth­er meta­bol­ic roles.

What Causes Hypochlorhydria?

In sim­ple terms, any form of bio­log­i­cal stress. Did you ever notice:

• Diges­tion stalls imme­di­ate­ly with emo­tion­al or phys­i­cal chal­lenge?
• Nau­sea often accom­pa­nies pro­longed stress?

Chlo­ride serves many roles in the body:

• Pri­ma­ry agent for Hydrochlo­ric Acid, HCL, in the stom­ach to digest food;
• Sec­ondary oxi­da­tion agent as a back­up to oxy­gen to burn off (oxi­dize) tox­ins;
• Cel­lu­lar Neu­tral­iza­tion of per­sis­tent tox­ins;
• Gen­er­al elec­trolyte.

Dr. Emmanuel Revi­ci doc­u­ment­ed that most, if not all, path­o­gen­ic cells absorb chlo­ride into the dou­ble bonds of unsat­u­rat­ed fat­ty acids.
Revi­ci cor­re­lat­ed chlo­ride stress phys­i­ol­o­gy to both:

• Sys­temic chlo­ride deple­tion result­ing in insuf­fi­cient stom­ach acid;
• Appear­ance of chlo­rine oxi­dized lipids on the sur­face of the intes­tine result­ing in bow­el dys­func­tion, often diag­nosed as diver­ti­c­uli­tis and Chron’s dis­ease;
• Med­ical Shock, result­ing in reduced blood flow, and dys­func­tion in the upper small intes­tine which
• As a result of stress.

For the pur­pos­es of this paper, stress results in a sequence of diges­tive dys­func­tions which wors­en depend­ing on both sever­i­ty and dura­tion of the stress:

• Phase 1 — Loss of stom­ach acid (Deple­tion of chlo­ride avail­able to the stom­ach for diges­tion);
• Phase 2 — Intesti­nal inflam­ma­tion (Accu­mu­la­tion of chlo­ride oxi­dized lipoids on the sur­face of the intestines).

For More infor­ma­tion see Stress Main Page.