ANTACIDS
by, Dr. Schuyler Lininger, Jr.
If you’ve been to your doctor recently, you may have been surprised to hear him recommend a calcium supplement. Doctors in the past have not been known for their willingness to recommend many vitamins or minerals to their patients. The reason for the prescription is simple: osteoporosis (or loss of bone calcium) is an American epidemic.
Fortunately, then, doctors are recommending calcium supplements; unfortunately, many of them are recommending antacids as the source of calcium. Why is this? The reason is antacids use calcium as one of the main alkalizing agents. If you are one of the many people following the advice of getting your supplemental calcium with an antacid, here is what your antacid tablet may contain besides calcium:
SODIUM (up to 53 mg., used in many - but not all - antacids, not good for you if you have high blood pressure).
MAGNESIUM ALUMINUM SILICATE and DIHYDROXYALUMINUM (aluminum compounds that most nutritional doctors believe may be harmful).
METHYLPARABEN, PROPYLPARABEN AND POLYETHYLENE GLYCOL (three widely used food preservatives).
MINERAL OIL (can coat the digestive tract and impair the absorption of nutrients like Vitamin D.
TALC (probably better used as a powder than as a food).
FLAVORING (not usually defined, which means flavoring can be made up of synthetic chemical compounds).
SUCROSE (plain old table sugar, not good for you if you have either diabetes or hypoglycemia).
CORN STARCH and CORN SYRUP (not good for you if you are allergic to corn products).
FD&C RED #3 (not good for you if you are chemically sensitive - probably not good for you even if you aren't chemically sensitive.
The ingredients listed above are in many of the antacids available in grocery and drug stores. You won't find these products in your health food store because of the variety of nonfood chemicals that accompany the calcium.
But even if you were able to find a chemical-free antacid, would it then be a good source of supplemental calcium as many doctors suggest? My answer would be “no”" and here’s why:
The calcium carbonate contained in antacid tablets ranges from 317 mg 500 mg. per is the mg. per tablet. Unfortunately, calcium carbonate is only 40% calcium; the other 60% is the carbonate carrier. So the actual calcium content ranges from 127 mg. to 200 per tablet.
The conservative adult recommended allowance for calcium is 1,000 mg. If you want to get the RDA for calcium using antacids, you need to take between 5 and 8 tablets a day. Since the per tablet cost of antacids in 100 count jars is about 25 cents, your daily cost of taking 5-8 tablets ranges from $1.25 to $2.00. The cost of a 1,000 mg. calcium supplements in your health food store is only 12-14cents per day. It doesn’t look as if supplements in your health food store are overpriced after all, does it?
For the sake of argument, let’s imagine an antacid that contained no harmful chemicals and that wasn’t overpriced as a calcium supplement. If such antacid existed, would that be a good source of supplemental calcium? Unfortunately, the answer would still have to be “no” - and here’s why.
Aluminum compounds have received a great deal of publicity in recent years due to the association of aluminum in the brain and Alzheimer’s disease. It has been proven the aluminum in antacids is absorbed from the intestine. Furthermore, aluminum containing antacids have been shown to interfere with normal mineral metabolism.
Observations have linked prolonged aluminum-containing antacid use with severe bone pain and fractures. In fact, some doctors have gone so far as to suggest such antacids cause bone-loss and their use should be considered one of the causative factors whenever there is bone disease of unknown origin. These conclusions are certainly at odds with those who recommended antacids as a calcium supplement!
A key factor in protein digestion and some mineral absorption (including calcium absorption) is an adequate supply of hydrochloric acid (HCl) in the stomach.
Since the function of antacid tablets is to reduce stomach acidity, antacids will reduce stomach acidity. Antacids will reduce rather than increase, calcium absorption. This fact alone should concern you, but if it doesn’t, remember why people often need to spell “relief” from acid stomach in the first place.
Stomach acid is very strong, it is strong enough to dissolve metal. One of my favorite stories demonstrating the strength of HCl involves a schizophrenic who swallowed a razor blade wrapped inside some bread (mentally ill people often swallow foreign objects). After eight days, an endoscopy was performed to remove the razor blade. Only corroded and crumbling fragments were recovered; the HCl had eaten completely through the razor blade.
Frequently when stomach HCl is in short supply, the symptom is heartburn. With low HCl, people usually cannot tolerate fried or spicy foods. Some cannot even handle eggs, butter, milk, meat or cheese. These are the same symptoms that antacids are prescribed for. Other symptoms include a feeling of fullness after eating, belching, constipation, diarrhea, and flatulence (gas). Why does HCl cause such symptoms and why do antacids relieve the symptoms?
If HCl is low, the stomach holds the food longer. (This is why one symptom of low HCl is a feeling of fullness after a meal.) Whatever HCl is present mixes in with the food. The stomach churns and instead of emptying its contents into the small intestine, some food regurgitates into the esophagus. Since the throat is not protected against acid with the same mucosal barrier of the
stomach, the throat gets burned. This burning is called “heartburn.” By treating this heartburn with antacids, the burning stops - but all the problems documented above can occur.
It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If antacids aren’t good as a calcium supplement and they aren’t good for heartburn - what are they good for?
x x x x x x x x
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