Why an Acidic pH Encourages Cancer

Do you know what acid-base balance means? If you don’t know now, you will by the time you finish this article.

This is important because it turns out that acid-base balance is one of the big factors in the unrestrained growth of cancers.

I have told you before that cancers are never a problem unless your body is not able to stop them from growing. Normal cells have growth restraints that limit their growth. But, cancer cells don’t have these restraints. And unless the immune system can stop them from growing, they will eventually get larger and then spread.

That’s when they become a problem. So, the moral is this: stop the growth of a cancer, and you stop it from ever bothering you. And, to that end, knowing your body’s acid-base balance is important.

All cells produce acid as a byproduct of the energy produced in their mitochondria. When the cells are healthy, they produce a small amount of acid. But, as the mitochondria become less efficient, as I describe in my book Bursting With Energy, the cells start making increasing amounts of acid. Acid-base balance refers to maintaining the right amount of acid (pH) in the tissues. When tissues are too acidic, they have a low pH, and, as the study I’m going to tell you about has discovered, this high-acid, low-pH imbalance promotes cancer growth and spread.

Scientists have long known that cancers have many pockets of high acidity, usually found deep within the tumor where little oxygen is available. However, this new study from MIT found that cancer cell surfaces are also highly acidic, and that this acidity helps tumors to invade surrounding tissues and spread.

The researchers discovered that when cancer cells live in a high-acid environment, it activates over 3,000 genes. And some of these genes produce proteins that make the cancer cells more aggressive. According to lead author Nazanin Rohani, “Tumor acidosis gives rise to the expression of molecules involved in cell invasion and migration. This reprogramming, which is an intracellular response to a drop in extracellular pH, gives the cancer cells the ability to survive under low-pH conditions and proliferate.”

So, where does this high acid level come from? It comes from two sources. First of all, as I mentioned above, it comes from cells whose mitochondrial efficiency has declined. This can happen for all kinds of reasons, all of which I discuss in my book. However, for decades now, many nutritionists have preached a dogma that the excessive acid comes from so-called acid foods. They say that avoiding these foods will correct the excessive acid. But this is simply not true.

The amount of acid these foods produce does not significantly affect the acid-base balance. The science on this is very clear. It shows that the body's excess acid overwhelmingly results from poor mitochondrial function, not from eating acidic foods. The moral here is that the best way to maintain a healthy acid-base balance is to keep your mitochondria happy. This concept is stressed in my book.

Next, cancer cells themselves produce excessive amounts of acids. This is because they are unhealthy cells with extremely poor mitochondrial function. And all of that excess acid gets dumped into the surrounding tissues, where it helps the cancer cells spread.

The researchers also showed that they could reverse this process in mice by making their bodies less acidic. When they added sodium bicarbonate (regular baking soda) to the mice’s drinking water, it reduced the acid around the cancer and decreased the gene expression associated with cancer spread. The authors of the study note that other researchers have shown that adding sodium bicarbonate to the drinking water of mice with cancer reduces the tendency of their cancers to metastasize. Because of this finding, the senior author of the study said, “Our findings reinforce the view that tumor acidification is an important driver of aggressive tumor phenotypes, and it indicates that methods that target this acidity could be of value therapeutically.”

So, what does all this mean for you? It means that if you keep a healthy acid balance, you are unlikely to die from cancer. How do you do that? It’s not that hard. Just read my book Bursting With Energy and do what it tells you. The entire book is about what you need to do to maintain youthful mitochondrial function even as you get much older. Additionally, you can do as I do and take ½ tsp of baking soda in some water every day. And, if you already have cancer, a good part of your anti-cancer strategy should be to take a teaspoon of baking soda in water twice a day, along with your other treatments.

Yours for better health,

Frank Shallenberger, MD