What Is The Ideal Body pH For Health & Wellness?

A variety of health problems can potentially occur when the body is either too alkaline or too acidic.

When the body fluids become too acidic, a condition called acidosis develops. Your kidneys and lungs will not be able to regulate the acid levels due to a variety of reasons, causing either respiratory or metabolic acidosis, which can lead to a range of issues including fatigue and drowsiness, headaches, jaundice, and an increased heart rate.

Conversely, when the body fluids become too alkaline, alkalosis results. Four types of alkalosis exist, including respiratory (lack of carbon dioxide in the blood), metabolic (imbalance of acids and bases), hypochloremic (chloride decline), and hypokalemic (lack of potassium), with symptoms ranging from nausea, muscle spasms, difficulty breathing and even comas.

So, what is the ideal pH balance for your body to be healthy and well?

Best pH for the Body

Many people think that more is better – unfortunately, that is not the case especially when it comes to body pH balance. Human beings are built of many different organs, muscles, tissues and systems to keep us operating, and there is a constant balance of acidity and alkalinity, measured by a ‘pH scale’, with 0 being highly acidic, and 14 being highly alkaline.  Normal human blood pH is 7.4 and has a narrow range of about +/- 0.2 units. If blood pH goes too low (more acidic) or too high (more alkaline), it can cause severe health problems.

So human blood pH balance should be slightly alkaline (7.35 - 7.45). Below or above this range means symptoms and disease.

 A pH of 7.0 is neutral. A pH below 7.0 is acidic. A pH above 7.0 is alkaline.

Acidic & Alkaline Water vs the pH of Bottled at Tap Water

Drinking water that is highly acidic is unhealthy and so too is drinking water that is highly alkaline when it is over a pH level of 9. The pH level of bottled and tap water often sits at 7.

We are now meeting people drinking “artificially created alkaline water using ionization technologies” that create water pH values of 9, 10– 11+ pH who have Alkalosis!

If you were very sick (cancer) and needed the boost to assist the body come back into balance then absolutely high alkaline water would be a benefit. But continued use at these levels is questionable if you are generally healthy or have no major health issues.

What is Alkalosis?

Metabolic alkalosis is caused by too much bicarbonate in the blood. As the pH balance of blood increases, the protein in the blood becomes more ionised into anions. This causes the free calcium present in blood to bind strongly with protein.

I met two women in their late 40’s at an expo in Sydney who had been drinking high pH 9+ “ionized” water for over 1 year and thought that more was better, however:

• they had just had their blood analysed and were informed that were suffering from calcium deficiency and alkalosis!
• they were shocked as you can imagine by this discovery.

How do you balance ideal pH levels in the blood? Acid-base balance

Maintaining a consistent acid-base balance is critical for optimal pH regulation within the body. The body regulates pH balances by releasing carbon dioxide from your lungs, as it holds a marginally acidic compound.

To assist in maintaining the best pH balance for your body, you can create highly alkaline water by simply adding bicarbonate soda (1 cup of water then add 1 teaspoon), which will trigger your body to release bicarbonate buffers into the blood stream around the stomach (so that the HCL acid released by the stomach does not burn a hole through the stomach wall). This helps to scavenge free radicals (acids) in your blood as well, however to continue to do this every day – without adequate “hydration” may cause significant unbalance in the body.

The philosophy and purpose of the zazen Alkaline Water System, is simply to provide water that has both an alkaline benefit to the body and first and foremost creates an alkaline mineral balanced water ideal for cellular hydration!

This in turn helps to prevent dehydration, which is the precursor to disease, and aids in the release of metabolic waste (acids) and toxins, helping keep you healthy and boost the immune system.

The purpose of water is to hydrate you and to do that you must drink a water with a balanced range of alkaline (electrolyte) minerals in it.

Read more about how important a balanced range of alkaline minerals (electrolytes) in your drinking water is as the foundation step to maintaining a healthy balanced alkaline body.