PH Acid-Base Balance:

PH Range

For our purposes we will be measuring urine and saliva. In a perfect world with other health parameters in place, the pH of both urine and saliva will be right around the 6.4 level - and this would be at just about any time of day when tested - though the best times to track and test for a baseline reading would be two hours after a meal.

Understand that pH can move all over the place. This is so because most individuals "total alkalinity" is not very strong. So two hours after a meal for instance, you may find the urine going acid as it is a reflection of the meals acid components pushing the pH. But as "total alkalinity" increases in an individual, this swaying urine pH starts to lock in at the 6.4 level. This takes time to accomplish.

The question may arise as to why urine and saliva should be steady in the 6.4 area, and the answer lies with the work of many researchers, most specifically in this regard to Dr. Carey Reams. In our own clinical work with the research of Reams, Vincent, Rivici and others, we strongly concur with the 6.4 level for urine and saliva.

The reason 6.4 seems to be ideal is for specific ionization principles to be carried out in the body. Anytime we talk about the human body and biological terrain, we can relate it to stories of farming and soil terrain for there is common ground in both areas. After all, we do come from the dust of the earth and it is the dust of the earth from which we will return (our bodies at least). pH is but one parameter that quantifies the nature of the terrain.

The testing that follows are a series of tests to illustrate where your pH lies and will give you insights to the degree of balance (or not) within your body.

We will follow this up with a few guidelines and simple mineral and calcium rules that can help an individual re-balance the pH.

Daily Cycyles Test

This is an on-going test over several days to even a couple of weeks to determine how your pH swings during the day under different circumstances and food consumption habits.

Take a sheet of paper and make 5 columns headed "time", "consumption", "saliva pH", "urine pH", "feel".

You will record your urine and saliva pH every time you go to the bathroom. When you wake up in the morning record the time and your pH values and how you feel. When you eat breakfast, record the time. Next time you go to the bathroom record the time, your pH values and how you feel. Next time you eat, record the time and what you ate. Next time you go to the bathroom record the time, pH values and how you feel. Do this throughout the whole day and over many days.

Here you will start to track what you eat, how that makes your pH sway, and how you feel during the process. It can be an invaluable tool to begin to make associations like; every time I eat x food, my pH a few hours later goes to y value, and I feel like…. You may start to notice patterns that are either for your benefit or perhaps not. Do it for a long enough period and you will start to see cause and effect. You are on the road to taking real charge of your health.

Wake-Up Test

First thing in the morning, your eyes open up, you roll over and test your saliva pH. In a best situation, your pH reads 6.4. Individuals with either chronic degenerative diseases or those setting themselves up for such will see their wake up saliva from 5.5 or lower with concurrent urine pH as low as 4.5. These values represent a long term acid stress on the body. Generally this means that an individuals alkaline reserves are very low to depleted. In general you do not want to see a wake up saliva pH below 6.1.

Salivating Test

You sit down to eat, you get the aroma of your favorite mealtime dish, you are ready to chow down and something begins to happen in your mouth. You begin to salivate. This is a reflection of the enzyme amylase kicking in for the starch digestion process. This enzyme needs a range of pH ideally around 7.2 pH. So if you have adequate alkaline reserves in your body, testing your saliva pH as you salivate before a meal should give you a pH reading of around 7.2. If your pH is not getting up to at least 7.0, you can assume there is stress in your alkaline reserves and the further below 7 it goes, the more depleted are those reserves. You could also suspect digestion all around is not doing so well. This typically indicates a longer term problem and more serious effort needs to be applied to help restore overall health.

Acid Meal Test

Here you are going to eat an acid forming food evening meal. Meat, pasta, beans, bread, nuts, fish, no vegetables. Next morning, check your first urine pH. The meal the previous evening was too acid, but the body needs to be getting rid of this acid, so the urine should reflect this. Best situation would be wake up urine from 4.5 up to 5.8 or so. This would be a reflection of your body having enough alkaline reserves that it was buffering the acid and the adrenals and kidneys had appropriate energy to get rid of it. It is a healthy response.

Wake up urine after the acid evening meal between 5.8 and 6.8 is a reflection that the body is barely compensating, and the higher the pH the worse the situation.

Wake up urine after the acid evening meal of 6.8 or higher is not good. It is a possible indication that the body is dumping bicarbonate ions and may be in the ammonia cycle of the liver to help deal with the acid. This situation probably means depleted alkaline reserves and possible exhausted adrenal glands as well as probable digestive problems.

If the above situation or an alkaline morning urine is accompanied by an acid saliva less then 5.8, the situation is getting worse, and the further apart the numbers, the worse it is. Definite remedial action for alkaline reserve build up is critical.

As a point of reference, have you ever been to a nursing home and smelled an ammonia odor? Did you think that was because the nursing home was doing a good job of house cleaning? Well that is not the case. What is happening is you are smelling the urine of very sick people in their last days. Their bodies are in a give up state, they are likely dumping any alkaline buffers they have and the body is in last ditch mode trying to maintain sufficient blood pH for life to hang on by converting the acid in their systems to ammonia. The single biggest thing those individuals need is more water for hydration and a lot of alkalizing minerals. I would venture to guess that if this were to occur in nursing homes around the country a lot of their patients would be getting better and going home.

Alkaline Meal Test

Here you are going to eat an alkalizing evening meal. Basically all vegetables. Green leafy veggies, broccoli, lima beans, carrots, etc. Next morning check your first urine pH.

If the pH range is 4.5 to 5.5 you can consider it a too acid response. It means your body has a lot of excess acidity stored and you need to keep up those alkaline evening meals until the numbers come up.

If you have a pH range from 5.5 to 6.8 it could be considered that you have a better level of alkaline reserves, but key to that assumption would be how you feel. If you feel healthy this range is ok. If you have symptoms of problems, you may need to dig more into the situation.

If the pH range is 6.8 to 8.5 again it could mean all is very well IF you are perfectly healthy. However, if you were experiencing serious symptoms of ill health, this alkaline response could be an indication that your cells are too toxic to use the alkaline reserves and instead are being dumped.

It should be mentioned here that there can be times when someone consumes many vegetables and alkaline minerals and their pH readings average far above 6.4. They believe this to be healthy but it actually is reflecting an underlying imbalance. Instead of using the minerals they are being dumped. Further testing will many times show an anabolic/catabolic imbalance - some clinicians also refer to this as an anaerobic/dysaerobic imbalance. This is related to the mix of fatty acids and sterols on cell membrane walls. If these fatty acids and sterols go askew it will affect cell membrane permeability so what goes in does not necessarily get assimilated the way it should.

Moving PH

To get a quick "average" pH, you can measure yourself two hours after breakfast and two hours after lunch. Do this over a period of days and get your average numbers. Then use this formula:

(Avg Urine pH ____ + Avg Saliva pH X 2 ___ ) / Divided by 3 = ___

Average pH Between 6 and 7

If your average pH is between 6 and 7 just use the neutral calciums of gluconate and orotate to build up your total alkalinity along with other minerals and trace minerals.

Average pH Above 7

If your pH is above 7, add calcium lactate and vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Clinicians have found about 1000mg twice a day of C is good, and the higher above pH 7 you go, the more vitamin C you can take. Stop the calcium lactate when you come into range between 6 and 7 and pull back on the vitamin C. Do not take vitamin D.

Average PH Below 6

If your pH is below 6, add calcium citrate or calcium carbonate. With pH 5.6 to 6 clinicians have found that adding 1000 IU of vitamin D once or twice a day is beneficial and pH from 5.2 to 5.6 up to 5000 IU of vitamin D is good, while pH below 5.0 up to 50000 IU of vitamin D once or twice a day would be ok as little vitamin D is being absorbed in the acid terrain. You can use the vitamin D to help push the pH up. Stop the calcium citrate and carbonate when you come into pH range 6 to 7. Pull back on vitamin D and go to cod liver oil for vitamin D requirements. Do not take vitamin C.

For more information, see The PH Balancing Act

For more information, see Acid / Base Balance

For more information, see Acid / Alkaline Foods

For Acid / Alkaline Foods, see Acid / Alkaline Foods