Metabolic Typing and Blood pH
Harold J. Kristal, D.D.S.
As most of you know, the blood pH curve, as inferred from the way the blood sugar responds to a special glucose challenge drink, is the central marker used in our Metabolic Typing protocol. I thought it might be interesting to give you some background as to the origin of this valuable marker.
It was first observed by George Watson, Ph.D., a full professor of psychology at the University of Southern California (USC), that small changes in venous blood plasma pH levels made a discernible difference in the moods and behaviors of many of his research subjects. It was he who first determined that the slightly alkaline level of 7.46 was the optimal venous blood pH; anything above, he considered overly alkaline, and anything below, he considered overly acid (we follow his relative usage of the terms acid and alkaline as being in relation to the perceived ideal of 7.46). Up until this time, venous blood pH was only measured in tenths (e.g. 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, etc.) but Watson was the first to measure it in hundreds (e.g. 7.35, 7.46, 7.54, etc.).
Watson’s ground-breaking observation — based on measuring the venous blood pH of psychiatric patients at the USC hospital — was that small changes in their blood pH could predict the degree and severity of the patient’s psychological and behavioral problems. After performing such analyses for some time, he began to experiment with the use of foods and nutritional supplements to help drive the blood pH towards the optimal balance point of 7.46. His research and clinical successes were documented in his classic book Nutrition and Your Mind: The Psychochemical Response (Harper & Row, 1972). Although his work was hailed by a small number of alternatively minded physicians, it was shunned by the mainstream medical and psychiatric community, whose professional pride was piqued by Watson’s bold assertion that psychoanalysis would not be fruitful if the patient’s blood pH was not balanced, and by his further claim that many apparently deep-seated psychological problems were simply unrecognized blood sugar imbalances that could be corrected by dietary changes.
Some years later, another pH pioneer stepped up to the plate to verify and expand upon Dr. Watson’s work. Rudolf Wiley, Ph.D., a physicist by training, discovered that not only were psychogenic conditions improve by balancing blood pH, but so too were many physical conditions, such as fatigue, allergies, obesity and cardiovascular problems. In his beautifully written book BioBalance (Essential Science Publishing, 1989) Wiley describes how to draw and centrifuge blood to determine its pH. He also reported on the results of an extensive research project that he underwrote and conducted which demonstrated the pH effects of commonly eaten foods in the body, research that, to this day, forms the basis of the food selections recommended to the various Metabolic Types.
I myself performed Rudolf Wiley’s testing protocol on over three hundred patients. However, it involved four intravenous blood draws over a fourteen hour period, and the use of extremely technique-sensitive equipment, so I sought out a less time consuming, costly and invasive approach. I remembered that Dr. Watson had mentioned in his book how the glucose tolerance test could be used to infer whether an individual’s blood was running on the relatively acid or alkaline side. After two years of trial and error, I perfected what I now refer to as the mini-glucose tolerance test (“mini” because it uses less than half the glucose of the original medical version), which has an over 80% accuracy rate. This innovation makes it possible to complete the process of Metabolic Typing in two hours, rather than the fourteen hours required by Rudolf Wiley’s method.
Another encounter early in 1996 further expanded and deepened my understanding of Watson and Wiley’s theories of acid-alkaline balance. After I had written an article on my work in the Townsend Letter for Doctors, I was contacted by William L. Wolcott who presented to me his radical new theory of the dominance principle. This principle is based on the observation that there are two primary systems in the body responsible for the production and management of energy: the Oxidative, or energy generating system (which is what Watson and Wiley’s work was exploring); and the Autonomic, or energy regulating system, which had been explored initially by Francis M. Pottenger, M.D., and later developed by William Donald Kelley, D.D.S. Wolcott’s theory asserted that one or the other system was most dominant in any given individual, and that this dominant system determined whether or not foods would have an acid or alkaline forming effect in the body. This model challenges the older but still common paradigm that asserts that foods have a fixed pH effect in everyone who eats them; whereas Wolcott’s dominance theory asserts that the net pH effect of the food once it enters the body is modified by the metabolism of the person consuming it. Over three years of extensive collaboration, Wolcott and I developed the prototype of the testing methodology that we use today to determine the different Metabolic Types.
People come to our clinic for a variety of reasons, and with health conditions ranging from minor to life threatening. Many of the benefits of Metabolic Typing are preventative, helping people to avoid potentially serious diseases by improving their nutritional status and metabolic functioning. Sometimes, however, they can be dramatic, as in the case of a 68 year-old woman who came to my office after undergoing a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer, only to be told that the cancer had returned. She was determined not to repeat her previous ordeal, and so she decided to have her blood pH tested. It turned out that she was so excessively alkaline that she was unable to properly metabolize her nutrients, and was, in effect, starving at a cellular level. I changed her diet, gave her a few basic supplements, and almost immediately her energy improved. When she returned to her oncologist three months later, he told her that she was in remission. Eleven years later, her cancer still has not returned, and she remains a living testament to the power of metabolically balancing the blood pH.
To find out how balanced you are contact Optimal Results 203-535-9294.
Marc Plano
www.optimal-results.net
