HCL.....Perhaps the most important dietary supplement!

If I asked you what the most crucial nutritional supplement could be, I am sure you would not find it. Not only you but also most of the experts, and the reason is that people consider more essential supplements for muscle support and weight loss.

Many people need help figuring out why they're always tired or aren't getting the expected muscle results from their hard work at the gym or more effortless fat loss through exercise on the elliptical, bike or general cardio.

Many complain that their sleep is not as it should be, there is no energy they would like, and their endurance is also reduced. Where might the solution be?

The solution is to achieve sufficient stomach acid for digestion to break down and absorb essential proteins and nutrients. Be aware that if there is no adequate and strong stomach acid to break down food, especially proteins, and help in the efficient absorption of proteins and nutrients, all supplements and even the highest quality diet will not affect health.

Stomach acid is a digestive fluid that forms in your stomach to break down food. It contains hydrochloric acid (HCL), potassium chloride and sodium chloride, and it activates digestive enzymes and plays a primary role in breaking down protein to reveal long amino acid chains. Potassium and sodium chloride are rarely limiting factors in stomach acid production - it's the HCL that people tend to have trouble producing.

Stomach acid is necessary for the following functions. Absorption of at least eight essential nutrients depends on adequate stomach acid:

• calcium

• vitamins B9 and 12,

• magnesium,

• zinc

• iron

• vitamin C

• beta carotene

Also:

• The absorption of antioxidant vitamins A and E, which their lack, puts them at greater risk for the production of oxidative stress and chronic inflammation.

• Protein breakdown for use in tissue and muscle synthesis

• Activation of enzymes, hormones and neurotransmitters

• Preventing bacterial pathogens from entering the lower gastrointestinal tract, causing infection and putting you at risk of stomach disease and cancer

Many people think that gastric distress is normal. Sorry, I'm going to disagree, but it's not. Nowadays, low acidity, even a little stomach acid for proper digestion, causes gastric stress and, in this way, can significantly increase the risk even for stomach cancer.

In many cases, it is misinterpreted that low hydrochloric acid levels lead to impaired digestion, and it is often misdiagnosed as the stomach containing too much acid.

In essence, however, this happens when the stomach does not empty properly, i.e. the partially digested food, carbohydrates and proteins have started to ferment. Thus reflux is created, raising the remains of the food into the oesophagus, an unpleasant problem usually interpreted by ignorant people but even by doctors as excess stomach acid.

For example, one research study found that people with clinically low stomach acid, hypochlorhydria, tended to experience much more acid reflux when lying down than those with ordinary stomach acid. Doctors had previously misdiagnosed over 50 percent of these people as having too much stomach acid or hyperchlorhydria and prescribed antacids!

Such misdiagnoses combined with antacids put the patient at risk for chronic disorders such as bone fractures and osteoporosis because calcium and magnesium are not absorbed.

So we see bone fracture rates triple in people with low HCL stomach acid. Additionally, studies show that you are 100 times more at risk for illness from bacterial pathogens like E. Coli when the stomach cannot produce sufficient HCL.

Even if stomach acid is low from the use of antacids, other factors lead to persistently low stomach acid, such as:

Oversized portions of food

Large portions at intervals in which the stomach has not completed the digestion process. These habits tire the stomach, and it reaches the point where it cannot complete digestion. Stomach fluids lose their acidity, and fermentations begin on the remains of food in the stomach. Here we see the continuous work of the stomach, which does not allow it to expel food completely.

In short, when we eat a meal and its digestion begins, it would be best not to touch food again until it is finished. Indeed you've had a delicious lunch, and it's gone after six hours because you'll have to nibble on something in between. Thus digestion is interrupted, and the body is forced to start a second digestion process with the new amount of food.

• The wrong use of antacids

It seems that it contributes significantly to low stomach acid, and this percentage may be greater than 60 per cent of people who take such medications, while they could, in a more natural way, restore the problem.

• Age

The stomach's ability to produce HCL declines by about 1 per cent each year, meaning that by age 70, your HCL is 70 per cent lower than when you were born. According to surveys of the prevalence of diagnosed hypochlorhydria, or clinically low stomach acid, at least 35 per cent of people over 60 do not produce enough HCL. This number dramatically underestimates the problem of low HCL because it needs to be validated. It is believed that in Western culture, this percentage may be as high as 90 per cent of the population who suffer from weakened stomach HCL.

• Stress

Daily stress that creates oxidations in the body and inflammations due to poor diet, chemical additives in food and pesticide exposure impair the body's ability to produce HCL.

This leads to poor digestion and infection by bacterial pathogens, leading to severe gastrointestinal problems and exponentially increasing the risk of stomach cancer.

If cortisol in the body is constantly elevated, you can be sure that the stomach will be negatively affected. This is true even for elite athletes whose indirect symptoms of low stomach acid include a lack of results from training, an inability to lose fat despite following a fat loss protocol and being tired all the time.

The constant stress of modern life, including radiation exposure, lack of sleep, poor diet and lack of exercise, can and do reduce the stomach's ability to produce HCL.

Symptoms directly related to low HCL include the following:

1. Belching, bloating or “acid reflux” after eating

2. Indigestion and constipation because food is not digested properly

3. Skin conditions such as acne

4. Vertical dislocation in the nails due to the inability to absorb nutrients from food

5. Cramps in legs and feet because you are not absorbing minerals

6. Chronic injuries due to poor amino acid status and inability to repair tissue

7. Food allergies and asthma

8. Gallstones

9. Poor cognitive function and onset of dementia

10. Low bone density and osteoporosis

If you suffer from these symptoms, I recommend doing a simple stomach acid test. Remember, you cannot correct nutrient deficiencies no matter how carefully you plan your diet unless you have a healthy gut and good HCL levels, and this is a fact!