Stomach acid


(Gloria) #1

I was curious if there was a correlation between degree of stomach acidity and what we are most suited to eat. Didn’t know if anyone else was interested in such weird stuff. It looked related to something @amber tweeted today.

Found this paper on PLOS. The Evolution of Stomach Acidity and Its Relevance to the Human Microbiome DeAnna E. Beasley1*, Amanda M. Koltz2, Joanna E. Lambert3, Noah Fierer4,5, Rob R. Dunn1 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134116

There are a few surprises. Not sure if it is a case of misclassification or just anomalies with in the group.


#2

Hmmm, interesting…

…scavengers and carnivores have significantly higher stomach acidities compared to herbivores or carnivores feeding on phylogenetically distant prey such as insects or fish. In addition, we find when stomach acidity varies within species either naturally (with age) or in treatments such as bariatric surgery, the effects on gut bacterial pathogens and communities are in line with our hypothesis that the stomach acts as an ecological filter. Together these results highlight the importance of including measurements of gastric pH when investigating gut microbial dynamics within and across species.

I’ve always wondered how vultures could “stomach” week old road kill.

P.S. Just noticed that rats (4.4) and mice (3.8) are quite a bit different from humans (1.5) This makes sense then, that rat/mouse studies do not necessarily apply to human microbiomes.

It is interesting to note that humans, uniquely among the primates so far considered, appear to
have stomach pH values more akin to those of carrion feeders than to those of most carnivores
and omnivores.


(L. Amber O'Hearn) #3

Yup! In fact, that’s probably my next blog post. Scooped! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:


(Gloria) #4

I am most interested to read your assessment.

I was not surprised that pH for humans is so low, but I was surprised to see that pH for dogs is much higher compared to others in their category. It would have been nice to have the data for wolves to compare to dogs–has hanging around with humans changed dogs" digestion/metabolism.


#5

I wonder how much people screw up stomach acid and digestion by taking antacids and PPIs for heartburn? ACV has fixed the couple of bouts of indigestion I’ve had.


(Gloria) #6

I thought I had read some things on nutritional deficiencies, but it took less than a minute to find the following paper.


(L. Amber O'Hearn) #7

My mother’s been taking PPIs for a while. I finally persuaded her to go off them and got her some HCl capsules, and DGL licorice. They give her complete relief, and I hope will heal the problem.