#368 Is Low Stomach Acid Contributing To Your Digestive Distress? with Brandee Hommerding, CNTP

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, I’m hanging out with the amazing Brandee Hommerding, a certified nutrition therapy practitioner and founder of Bee Collective Wellness. Brandee is basically a stomach acid detective (yes, really), and she’s on a mission to help women feel better by mastering their digestion and hormones. In this episode, we’re diving headfirst into all things stomach acid—why it’s essential for digestion, how it’s tied to your hormone health, and what happens when you don’t have enough of it. Spoiler alert: it’s a game-changer for everything from nutrient absorption to energy levels. If you’re ready to get to the root of bloating, fatigue, and more, this episode is for you!

PSA: Stop chugging water before meals, friends! It’s not helping – it’s diluting your stomach acid and making digestion harder. Instead, sip water throughout your meal, and let your stomach acid do its job!

That’s a Wrap: You’re going to love this episode – Brandee’s wisdom on stomach acid will have you rethinking your entire approach to digestion. Plus, we’ll give you actionable tips that you can start using today to feel better, more energized, and less bloated.

So, grab a cozy drink (not right before a meal, though!) and hit play. Your stomach will thank you!

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Signs/symptoms of low stomach acid
• What are the root causes of low stomach acid?
• How to find out if you have low stomach acid
• Steps to support stomach acid production
• What are the long-term effects of having low stomach acid?
• The importance of chewing and mindful eating!
• The dangers of long-term acid-blocking medications

ABOUT GUEST:
Brandee is a Certified Nutrition Therapy Practitioner and the driving force behind Bee Collective Wellness. Brandee is on a mission to empower women through personalized nutrition coaching, with a strong focus on digestive and hormone health.

As a self-proclaimed "diet-culture dropout," Brandee is dedicated to providing, nutrition support that is sustainable and provides flexibility. Her goal is to guide women through overcoming challenges like bloating, fatigue, PMS, and irregular menstrual cycles. By eliminating these symptoms, Brandee helps her clients feel more connected to their bodies, paving the way for a vibrant and energetic life.

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://www.beecollectivewellness.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beecollectivewellness/

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: ****https://www.christabiegler.com/links

NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY:

• Over restriction is dead
• Whole food is soul food and fed is best
• Sustainable, synergistic nutrition is in (the opposite of whack-a-mole supplementation & supplement graveyards)
• You don’t have to figure it out alone
• Do your best and leave the rest

Transcript

[00:00:00] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: zinc and stomach acid have like the cyclical relationship. We need stomach acid to liberate zinc from our food that we're eating, but then we need zinc in order to create stomach acid. 

[00:00:11] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stressed life. On this show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life. 

[00:00:41] Christa Biegler, RD: One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together. 

[00:00:58] Christa Biegler, RD: Today on The Less Stressed Life, I have Brandee Hommerding, who is a certified nutrition therapy practitioner and the driving force behind Bee Collective Wellness. She's on a mission to empower women through personalized nutrition coaching with a strong focus on digestive and hormone health. 

[00:01:12] Christa Biegler, RD: As a self proclaimed diet culture dropout, Brandee is dedicated to providing nutrition support that's sustainable and provides flexibility. Her goal is to guide women through overcoming challenges like bloating, fatigue, PMS, and irregular menstrual cycle by Eliminating these symptoms, she helps her clients feel more connected to their bodies, paving the way for a vibrant and energetic life. 

[00:01:30] Christa Biegler, RD: So Brandee and I were just talking before I hit record about how we met each other. We met each other in this group of practitioners that a mutual colleague of hers and a mutual colleague of mine started together. And I ended up there because I was asked to give a breath work. Session to that group. 

[00:01:44] Christa Biegler, RD: And then they invited me to be in it. And what an, a lovely, beautiful, cool group of women. So I've already had one or two people on the show from that group and now Brandee's here. And I asked, I posted a thread and said, what are you excited about right now? What are you passionate about? Brandee's I'm super passionate about stomach acid and digestion. 

[00:02:02] Christa Biegler, RD: I was like, I know me too. And actually I was at a conference on this note. I used to do a stomach acid assessment when people walked through the door of my program. And then a couple of years ago I dropped it off cause. When you do a lot of things, there's a lot of content and sometimes you cut things cause you're trying to simplify. 

[00:02:19] Christa Biegler, RD: And then I was at a conference in March and I just felt like the com, the topic came up constantly. And I always joke to my clients that they can write on my, Tombstone, like no one digested properly. Like that was like the punchline of my life. Like no one was digesting. That's your problem. 

[00:02:36] Christa Biegler, RD: That was like half of your problems right there. And I decided to bring back stomach acid assessment as a first line thing, because if people don't necessarily believe you, they're like, I think I digest fine, I poop. 

[00:02:47] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah, 

[00:02:48] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't see anything undigested, so I don't think it's important. And so we can talk a little bit about that, but that's where I'm coming in from that. 

[00:02:54] Christa Biegler, RD: Sometimes our interest is renewed, which is why I love podcast stuff. It's if you're listening to this good on you, because I think sometimes we just have to keep refreshing our brain, or even if we think we know a topic, it's good to revisit it to just be like inspired in a different way, so thank you for coming on the show to do just that for us today. 

[00:03:11] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Thanks for having me. 

[00:03:12] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. All right. Let's make this matter to people because that's all people care about. People just want to know how it affects them. And also we could talk about like how you became obsessed with this because I just talked about it from my perspective. 

[00:03:23] Christa Biegler, RD: So let's actually start with how you became obsessed with it and then we'll talk about it. Yeah. Why people should care. What are the signs and symptoms of stomach acid issues? 

[00:03:32] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: With the population of people that I work with, I mainly work with women, and I'm finding that a lot of women are dealing with GI discomfort of some sort, and I started to unravel all this, learn a lot more. 

[00:03:44] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: I really utilized. The GI map tests within my practice as well. And I'm seeing a lot of like digestive dysfunction. And when we think about digestion, a lot of people are like, Oh, you just eat and like your body takes care of everything. Yes. And no, yes, it does. But we have to make sure that we have optimized our body so that it can take care of all of the steps it needs to do to digest and absorb the nutrients from your food, because there's difference. 

[00:04:09] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: There's difference between eating the food and absorbing the nutrients from your food. So I got really obsessed around stomach acid and I was like, more people need to know about the importance of stomach acid because I feel like so many people think that, oh, this acid reflux and this heartburn is so bad and I have too much stomach acid. 

[00:04:28] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And they've been told that by maybe their medical providers and they've been led down this, the wrong path for like too long. And now they're having all of these other GI symptoms that pop up as a result. And so I'm like, Let's look at like the root cause and really think about how we can optimize digestion and looking at what role does stomach acid play in your health and wellness journey? 

[00:04:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, for sure. Okay. So you just talked about some of the symptoms that people experience if they have poor stomach acid, which can, it feels confusing, heartburn. reflux even maybe pain in the stomach, which could be this acidic feeling similar to how an ulcer may feel. My experience I'll just mention really quickly is that hasn't been very fruitful for people to go try to assess for ulcers. 

[00:05:11] Christa Biegler, RD: So usually I just soothe that GI lining, honestly. Are there burping those are really common ones, but what do you think about some other possible signs and symptoms of people who don't have adequate stomach acid? 

[00:05:21] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Gas and bloating for sure. Gas and bloating is such a blanket symptom and there's so many different root causes. 

[00:05:28] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: It's this is an easy box to check and like to support stomach acid and be like, Hey, do we see improvements? feeling excessively full at meals. Like when you're eating and you're like, Oh, I'm just so full. Or I've had clients too, who are like. I know I should eat again. It's time to eat again, but I'm still so full from my last meal because they don't have enough stomach acid to be digesting that food that they ate at that meal. 

[00:05:51] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: You can also have some food sensitivities can be related to not having enough stomach acid and a whole bunch of digestive processes being hindered there. Having weak nails, brittle hair, all of that can be related. Like a lot of people don't correlate that. If you have difficulty digesting meat, I've worked with clients in the past who are like, Ooh, I'll submit meat became like unappealing or I was having a harder time digesting it. 

[00:06:16] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And so I went to more of a plant based diet, which then alleviates their symptoms temporarily, but then the symptoms end up showing up a little bit later as well. And then there can also be seen undigested food in your stool. Like we shouldn't see carrots and broccoli and lettuce in our stool. If you're seeing that you might not have enough stomach acid. 

[00:06:39] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, for sure. And to your point, you brought up a lot of things that are downstream breaking of the nails, et cetera. And I think it can literally just be anything, right? Of course, right? That's, you gave all the most obvious ones, but it could be anything after a long time. And to your point, I think that some people end up. 

[00:06:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Eliminate a meat out of their diet because of low stomach acid, because I just, that wasn't appealing. So that was the question I asked people when they eliminate meat is Oh, did it actually, did you have digest? Did it feel like you couldn't digest it? Wait, if you're not digesting animal proteins and getting amino acids then. 

[00:07:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Anything 

[00:07:13] Christa Biegler, RD: could go wrong, anything. 

[00:07:14] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. 

[00:07:15] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Hormones, neurotransmitters, immune system, like anything, 

[00:07:19] Christa Biegler, RD: everything. So no wonder it's like good grief, mind explosion. Why wouldn't I love talking about this? Okay. So where this is a little bit tricky is that population that is also so fun to help the people that have acid reflux and who have been given acid blocking medication. 

[00:07:37] Christa Biegler, RD: So let's unpack this maybe starting with. Okay. This is our simpleton approach, or Oh, people are acidic. Let's give them acid reducers. And understandably it does calm symptoms for people. So let's start to unpack that what's happening, what happens when people take medications? 

[00:07:53] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. So the two medications that are typically prescribed would be a PPI, a proton pump inhibitor, or an H2 blocker. And what the PPI is doing is it's blocking the protein needed for stomach acid production. So your protein that you need to make your stomach acid. And the H2 blockers are then blocking the histamine receptor that is generating your stomach acid. 

[00:08:18] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So it's temporary, it's like. blocking the creation of more stomach acid. So yes, it's going to alleviate these symptoms that people are having because there's less stomach acid. But we have to be like, why are you having this acid reflux or heartburn symptom to begin with? We have to think about like digestion being a north to south process and everything that happens in the north is going to affect things in the south. 

[00:08:41] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And so what is happening that The acid, like the sphincter, the opening between the esophagus and stomach, that's not closing all the way. And we actually need to have sufficient amount of stomach acid to trigger the closing of that opening, that little sphincter. And if it, we don't have sufficient stomach acid, they can hang open and we can, the little bit of stomach acid we have can actually be reflexing up and causing the symptoms that people are experiencing. 

[00:09:07] Christa Biegler, RD: That's your catch 22, right? So when people hear this, I think maybe sometimes their thought process is I'd to just stop acid blockers. What is, I think there's a little more of a gradual process and just a disclaimer, neither Brandee or I could tell anyone to stop their acid blockers because we're not physicians and only a physician can tell someone to stop their medication. 

[00:09:26] Christa Biegler, RD: So just be really clear about what's acceptable, not acceptable. Anytime someone asks me if they can stop their medication, I tell them it's not up to me to make that decision. If you have a client who's I would like to do this, how might you support them to eat off of it? 

[00:09:42] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: We would need to look at like upper gastric healing. 

[00:09:44] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: We need to really soothe that lining. And it would, they definitely didn't have that conversation with their doctor and be like, Hey, I'm interested in like weaning off this as well. But let's support what was maybe inflamed and how we can. I always want to put out the fire before adding more to it. 

[00:10:03] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So for some people, they can tolerate maybe using some digestive bitters or maybe a little apple cider vinegar at the time, but other people they can't because that can trigger the acid reflux as well. So we need to pursue then heal that lining first before then we can think about no, Increasing your stomach acid to an appropriate level. 

[00:10:24] Christa Biegler, RD: For sure. Let's talk about some things that help support soothing and healing the upper lining. And to your point, those are really introductory things that sometimes people do like shots of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, or even stomach acid repletion, but it may not be the first step if you're already really acidic, we have to. 

[00:10:41] Christa Biegler, RD: put out the fire. So let's talk about some things that help do that. 

[00:10:44] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. Aloe vera juice, some chlorophyll marshmallow root is really good. There's some different teas out there that can be really calming and soothing to that lining zinc is really important for the stomach and for stomach acid production. 

[00:11:01] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So as zinc supplement might be something that you can consider bringing in as well. But we don't want to bring in anything that's like really acidic to add more fire to a fiery situation. 

[00:11:13] Christa Biegler, RD: And deglyzerized licorice I'll offer. 

[00:11:15] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Oh yeah. Yes. 

[00:11:15] Christa Biegler, RD: Deglyzerized is the important word there. Although licorice if people have high blood pressure can raise it. 

[00:11:20] Christa Biegler, RD: Now deglyzerized licorice is not supposed to raise high blood pressure, but just my experience is that maybe it has raised it like 10 points. So I was Trying to ask, even though usually my clients aren't experiencing high blood pressure, every once in a while, they will say, Hey, I noticed my blood pressure went up 10 points. 

[00:11:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Here we go. Even when it's not supposed to, sometimes it does. So first soothing and then correcting the root causes of low stomach acid. So we forgot the step, which is what causes low stomach acid or what's happening in people's lives that reduces stomach acid in the first place. 

[00:11:52] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. 

[00:11:52] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: One, not having enough zinc is very important for stomach acid production, zinc and stomach acid have like the cyclical relationship. We need stomach acid to liberate zinc from our food that we're eating, but then we need zinc in order to create stomach acid. So zinc is really important in this whole process. 

[00:12:10] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: But then stress is a big thing. And when our body is in a very stressed out state, when we're in that sympathetic nervous system is being activated, we are not prioritizing proper digestion. Stomach acid juices, gastric juices are not being secreted. That's all being put on the back burner because the body is prioritizing fleeing from the stressful situation. 

[00:12:33] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So with the sympathetic, it's This is the fight or flight our bodies in the spider flight mode. We want to activate that parasympathetic nervous system where we are in that rest and digest area where the body can prioritize proper digestion. Another factor that could impact that would be if you have an underlying H pylori. 

[00:12:55] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So H. pylori is a bacteria that does like to take up home in your stomach. And a lot of people have it and it's very easy to transmit through saliva, contaminated water, fecal transmission. And this bacteria, what it does is it likes to burrow down into the stomach lining. And then it likes to secrete an enzyme to decrease the amount of stomach acid that you have available, because it can't thrive in an acidic environment. 

[00:13:23] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: If you have an underlying H. pylori infection, that can definitely be triggering you to have low stomach acid. Age is a big factor. If you're over the age of 65, digestive function starts to decrease a little bit. If you've had any surgeries on your stomach, so somebody that maybe has some bariatric surgery and they had part of their stomach removed, we have less parietal cells than available to create and release that stomach acid. 

[00:13:51] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So you're going to need maybe a little bit more support and be very mindful of that. And then if you are eating more of a vegetarian or vegan based diet, if we're not stimulating the parietal cells to release the stomach acid when we eat meat, animal proteins, then the body's going to stop producing as much. 

[00:14:12] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And so people who have more of a plant based diet do tend to have not enough stomach acid. 

[00:14:18] Christa Biegler, RD: There's a few things I wanted to highlight about that list that you just provided. So one thing I wanted to say about H. pylori that I thought was really relevant that you brought up already but I'm just going to highlight was that H. 

[00:14:27] Christa Biegler, RD: pylori is like a spirochete. So it's this, it likes to burrow in. It's very spiral. I always get a bit timid about talking about H. pylori without context and I want to offer some now. My experience working conventionally for years is that it's very underdiagnosed or poorly diagnosed. Inaccurately diagnosed as many got as many chronic issues are or imbalances unless the symptoms are extremely acute and very severe. 

[00:14:53] Christa Biegler, RD: Usually, it's not going to be picked up by conventional testing. However, if you look at the literature, it shows that in the United States alone, H. pylori prevalence is at least 30 percent of the population, which is pretty significant. So if you literally just look that up, it'll pop right up. 

[00:15:08] Christa Biegler, RD: And then I want to say that in the Middle East, it even goes to 60%. And I have a friend who's originally from Jordan and She said that part of their culture is to actually chew on mastic gum post meals, which I think is so fascinating, right? Now, how H. pylori became so prevalent? Honestly, I don't know. 

[00:15:28] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm not sure. But we do know, as you mentioned already, that we share that among people we live with, right? So when we share out of cups and we share spoons and things, it's very, or kissing, it's very commonly transmitted. And I think, I was actually pondering this. This is a funny story. 

[00:15:42] Christa Biegler, RD: I've been looking for an opportunity to share this. So perfect. Here we go. I think that I've talked to a veterinarian before about this and she said, H. pylori is actually really common in dogs as well. And so there's a lot of vomiting and things, but I was in a public bathroom just A couple of days ago. 

[00:15:57] Christa Biegler, RD: And I heard these women talking about the color of the water of the toilet being blue. And one of the women said, I don't like to put that stuff in my tank because the dogs drink out of the toilet. And I was just thinking, cause I don't have a dog and I got to thinking, Oh my gosh, no wonder. Like this gets shared so much because as if your toilet is clean when, and In reality, I think this is pretty common for a dog that comes inside to drink out of the toilet. 

[00:16:23] Christa Biegler, RD: It's I'm thirsty. Here's the water. But it's duh, of course your dog is going to get everything that's in your digestive tract. If they're going to drink out of your toilet water I don't care that you flushed it down. That is not clean. And and then your dog licks your face and it's wonder, like we're just sharing this whole fecal oral route. 

[00:16:40] Christa Biegler, RD: And it's I just had an epiphany right there in the bathroom. 

[00:16:43] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. I love it. 

[00:16:46] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm like, Oh my gosh, I never thought about it quite like that. I was always thinking about dogs, licking their butt and licking owners, how we share organisms because sometimes this is a good conversation for. 

[00:16:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Just in general parasites which I always talk about, try to talk about very intelligently, but we unfortunately, since, they don't show up very well on testing, but yet we very widely accept treating our animals for parasites and then people sleep with their animals and, it's just we're all very, we're in, this community together. 

[00:17:12] Christa Biegler, RD: Like it's very easy to transmit things. So there's a lot more I could say about that, but I do want to also offer that I think timing. And as far as I know, this is correct. This is what I was taught by my naturopathic mentor is that. If you introduce stomach acid prior to resolving a potential H. 

[00:17:28] Christa Biegler, RD: pylori infection, which, again, is not always very easily found on testing you can drive it further into the tissue, potentially, because it is spiraling and burrowing deeply, because it would want to escape that acid. Acidity, the acidity, part of the reason that it's really useful. I always talk about it a gate. 

[00:17:43] Christa Biegler, RD: My stupid joke is that this is why college kids didn't eat pizza that sat out all night because the stomach acid is supposed to bathe the food that you consume. That's full of potential crap. So if you have low stomach acid, that's when the start of any other gut infections can occur and cause issues months, years later, and you might be like, huh, weird. 

[00:18:04] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah, because we have to think about your stomach acid. Yes, it is going to help with liberating our nutrients from our food, but it also is very protective against any microbes that we might be consuming or parasites that we might be encountering and if you don't have enough stomach acid and they're like constantly struggling with parasite issues or bloating and stuff like that, we have to think about what happened to the bacteria? 

[00:18:26] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: How can the bacteria is maybe imbalanced in the gut? And exploring that a little bit deeper. But yes, stomach acid is a huge component to a lot of the GI symptoms. 

[00:18:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Something else you mentioned. As potential root causes for low stomach acid was low zinc. And I want to qualify that a little bit. 

[00:18:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Also, I want to talk about how people, and then we'll go backwards and talk about how people can assess for low stomach acid. But first let's talk about zinc, because I think the last four years have resulted in a lot of, I think zinc supplementation and somewhat careless or uninformed supplementation as maybe resulted in other deficiencies. 

[00:19:01] Christa Biegler, RD: And that's just the reality of most nutrients that if you supplement one individually, and you don't know the, by the downstream effect, and you do it for a long time, you're creating deficiency in another area. And that is the relationship with zinc and copper. And people are deficient in zinc, but let's talk a little bit. 

[00:19:16] Christa Biegler, RD: What do you want to say about the relationship of zinc to copper? Or do you suggest people assess their zinc level prior to doing anything to support zinc levels in their body? 

[00:19:27] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah, there's that the zinc aqueous test that you can do. And so where you're using aqueous zinc to identify, Hey, what am I noticing in tasting? 

[00:19:38] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Do I taste mineralliness? Do I taste nothing? And that can help to assess like what your zinc status is before you just blindly start. Doing zinc supplementation. 

[00:19:49] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. So it's a type of zinc that you buy and you take a little swig and if it tastes metallic y I think it's deficiency, right? I don't use this test. 

[00:19:56] Christa Biegler, RD: But that is an option. I am using mineral testing that does show me tissue levels of zinc and copper. I rely on that more than serum testing. One thing we can say is that usually conventionally no vitamin tests are usually run in, conventional blood testing without request. 

[00:20:11] Christa Biegler, RD: I think zinc is, it would not be a very common one. I would say like vitamin D, vitamin B12, those would be much more accessible. Zinc might be one you can gather. And I would say in general, copper. As a bit more nuanced, there's a few other pieces like ceruloplasmin et cetera, that can give you an inference in that. 

[00:20:30] Christa Biegler, RD: And there's a specific type of zinc that's very soothing and healing to the gut called zinc carnizine that it also inhibits H. pylori. And it doesn't, it's not a direct translation. I don't know if it's five milligrams of zinc can equal 75 milligrams of zinc carnizine. But usually it's 75 milligrams one to two times per day. 

[00:20:46] Christa Biegler, RD: And I don't mind doing that short term. It's the long term. In individual supplementation that I would discourage without care for the other minerals and nutrients. These are minerals, and I would say in general, to your point, overall depleted minerals are an issue for stomach acid production. 

[00:21:03] Christa Biegler, RD: That was a big issue for me. In practice, I first did a lot of stomach acid repletion through stomach acid supplementation early in practice, and then people, They were better for a while and they got worse again because stress and what are the real root causes, right? You can replace something, but what's underneath of that, right? 

[00:21:21] Christa Biegler, RD: What minerals are depleted? What is your stress? And would you say what are your thoughts and experience about people's predisposition to being acidic or having acid reflux or low stomach acid? 

[00:21:33] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: I honestly haven't thought about the predisposition people. 

[00:21:37] Christa Biegler, RD: So I don't do genetic testing anymore. There is at least a gene. I know on my genetic test that does talk about stomach acid creation. So that is a possibility. In Ayurvedic medicine with, so this is just like interesting, right? Is all I think about it. In terms of, but cause I like to think about the emotional relationship a lot in our health and our physiological health. 

[00:21:55] Christa Biegler, RD: And in Ayurvedic medicine, which I do not know a lot about, there is these archetypes like fire, water, wind. Maybe earth. I hope I'm getting close, but they always say kind of fire is like this reactive sort of fiery predisposition to stomach acid. And every once in a while I will meet a person. 

[00:22:13] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm like, Oh yeah, you're definitely fire in Ayurveda. And I don't know how you are one of these archetypes. I do not remember. I do have a, I do have an episode with Dr. Raja Simabmani, who is an Ayurvedic dermatologist and I believe he went over it in that episode, but anyway, every once in a while, these silly things pop into my brain. 

[00:22:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Not really that silly, honestly, but I do think if you've had a reflux, my experience is that, you can always have the same issue again. If this root causes pop up, right? Learning how to resolve at once is, it's a great experience because it may happen again and you may have to resolve it again because life happens to all of us, right? 

[00:22:49] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Especially with a H. pylori. If you have H. pylori issue, that can definitely be a recurring thing. If you're not addressing like the root cause of, Hey, I need to make sure I have enough stomach acid to protect myself from H. pylori coming back. 

[00:23:04] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. We have a lot of conversations in our practice too, about family members and just partners and talking sometimes I'll have one client and they're positive for H. 

[00:23:12] Christa Biegler, RD: pylori. And then I just have a conversation like, Hey, it is your partner. Have heartburn or reflux. And do they want to do anything about that? Because otherwise they're going to reinfect you. So not to cause stress, it's I always say there's always some nuance in here usually. 

[00:23:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. So we've talked about signs and symptoms that people might have if they don't have adequate stomach acid. We've talked about root causes of low stomach acid. Let's go backwards and talk about how someone might in general, that they have enough stomach acid. 

[00:23:41] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Okay there's two main ways. You could go the conventional route and ask your doctor, your medical provider, to perform a Heidelberg stomach acid test. Like this is of course going to be going through your doctor. It's a medical procedure. You're swallowing a capsule that has a radio transmitter in it, and it's recording the data of the pH of your stomach after drinking a baking soda solution. 

[00:24:06] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And your insurance may or may not cover that. And this is a lot more involved than doing just a simple at home baking soda test. So the baking soda test at home you're dissolving like a quarter to a half a teaspoon of baking soda and four to six ounces of water. And you're drinking that first thing in the morning before you eat or drink anything. 

[00:24:27] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And you want to drink it quickly. And then you want to time how long it takes for you to burp. So if you are burping within two to three minutes of drinking that solution, It's thought that you have adequate stomach acid if you are taking longer than 3 minutes, or you don't burp at all. You are probably deficient in stomach acid. 

[00:24:47] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And if you are burping in under 2 minutes, and you're burping excessively, you're You probably have excess stomach acid. So this, I would say, repeat this test like a few mornings in a row to gather all of your data and your information. And then we can start to make an assessment around Hey, do you need stomach acid support? 

[00:25:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. So let's say someone does this test and they're like, Oh my gosh, Brandee. I burped. Once after 60 minutes, or I burped twice in 45 minutes. What do you say to that person next? 

[00:25:19] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: We need to start supporting your stomach acid. And there's multiple ways in which that you can do that. One would be to include some butane HCL. 

[00:25:30] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And I would work with a practitioner who is familiar with this. I don't necessarily. I don't necessarily recommend people going out and doing this on their own necessarily. But that's using some betaine HCL with pepsin in it, starting really low at 150 milligrams. Midway through a meal, you're taking this as a stomach acid like support while you are working to do other things to increase your stomach acid naturally. 

[00:25:55] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So that's one thing and that's like the extreme. There's multiple little things that you can do first before you reach that point. One would be, are you being mindful at your mealtime? Are you sitting, are you engaging all your senses? When you sit down and even when you're reading a menu and you're like, oh my gosh, my mouth is watering, just reading this, that is. 

[00:26:17] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Digestive enzymes being secreted in your mouth to help break down the carbohydrates you're about to eat. So it's part of the digestive process. So you need to sit down. You need to engage your senses. You need to, what do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste? What do you see? All of that supports proper digestion. 

[00:26:34] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: But then chew your food thoroughly so that your body doesn't have to work so hard to digest things as well. Bitter foods or digestive bitters can be really helpful at increasing your stomach acid as well. So thinking about bitter foods would be like arugula or fennel or dandelion greens some citrus fruits. 

[00:26:54] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Those can be bitter, including just a little apple cider vinegar and a little bit of water before a meal that can, or using digestive bitters. Those can help stimulate your stomach acid production as well. 

[00:27:06] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I sometimes remind clients that I went to a microbiome conference and at one of the sessions they were talking about how there's bitter receptors in the lungs. 

[00:27:15] Christa Biegler, RD: So I often say bitters do more than we even understand at the moment. Huh. When you know, our body is made with all of this wisdom. And so we just always haven't discovered every part of the wisdom. So I love all the suggestions you gave. And like you said even though the internet may inform you that stomach acid repletion is the first step I have found through years of experience. 

[00:27:36] Christa Biegler, RD: That is really not the first step anymore to me personally. Everyone could do their own thing, but I would, I'll tell you, and this will probably be just most impactful if someone experiences this. If. Your esophageal or stomach lining, or if you're, if your mucosal linings are already very raw or irritated or inflamed, as you were talking about earlier, the fire. 

[00:27:55] Christa Biegler, RD: And I think in general, there's a good lesson here. If there's a fire, put out the fire first. 

[00:28:01] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yep. 

[00:28:02] Christa Biegler, RD: It usually 

[00:28:04] Christa Biegler, RD: doesn't work to not put out fires. I deal with a lot of skin stuff and the one exception to internal healing is a fire on top of the skin. It's yeah, nothing on the inside is going to put out that fire. 

[00:28:14] Christa Biegler, RD: Like we got to put out the fire first. Like I have learned that the hard way, unfortunately, but what I'm trying to say is if things are on fire already, and you already said this, you must soothe. If you repletion supplements, it will probably hurt like hell. I'll just say it probably will. And that might just be something people learn the hard way. 

[00:28:31] Christa Biegler, RD: And they may have bypassed this episode for that reason. They may be wondering. If stomach acid is low, because stomach acid is one of the first things to go with stress, then I just like to offer and mention that maybe other digestive processes because other carbohydrate digesting enzymes, which are created in the pancreas, et cetera, those may also be on the struggle bus. 

[00:28:53] Christa Biegler, RD: So in general supporting, just realizing like most people have a lot of challenges with digestion because we all live in this low grade stress. situation. Anything we can do to improve our digestion, like you said, being mindful, slowing down. Those are like the major things that make a huge difference and they are really hard. 

[00:29:12] Christa Biegler, RD: They're really hard for people. And for me, it was so hard for so long, almost to an embarrassing point. In college I would be the first one done eating among. All of my dietitian colleagues, like classmates. And I thought for a long time, like, why in the world am I like this? What did, what happened? 

[00:29:30] Christa Biegler, RD: And we're so often a mirror and sometimes I'm like my dad grew up in the military. So he's always eating really fast. So these are the things that you start to, as you start to evaluate your life, you're like, Why am I this way? How did I become unconscious of eating, even though literally my major and like my interest was food was such an interesting thing. 

[00:29:51] Christa Biegler, RD: So I tell you that because I often like to remind us that we're all just human. And so I never blame us for being humans. And that our own awareness is our best friend in change and in the best life we can have. Okay. So we've talked about how to test for stomach acid. You just talked about what people can do. 

[00:30:07] Christa Biegler, RD: We talked about, the acid reducing medications. Is there anything we should cover before we leave that topic? Are there any other negative side effects to being on acid or just long term that you think we didn't cover? Just curious. 

[00:30:21] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah, I do want to point out like one acid reducing medications are like one of the top five prescribed medications in the US. 

[00:30:28] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So it feels like it's handed out willy nilly and the FDA has only approved it for short term use. And a lot of people don't realize that. And they've been on it for years and years and years. And again, like we talked about, you don't just cold turkey. You have a conversation with your medical practitioner and express why you're interested in. 

[00:30:48] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: reducing this medication or coming off this medication. B12 deficiency is really common with these medications that reduce your stomach acid. And so I think it does even say on like the insert, like to take a B12 vitamin when you're on these, because what it's doing is that stomach acid is responsible for activating something called intrinsic factor and intrinsic factor is needed for B12 absorption. 

[00:31:15] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So you can see a lot of B12 deficiencies with people with not enough stomach acid and being on these acid reducing medications on term. 

[00:31:22] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. So I'll just piggyback on that. That B12 comes from these animal proteins. You have to break them down. You need the stomach acid to activate the intrinsic factor for absorption. 

[00:31:31] Christa Biegler, RD: And the side effects, there can be several. You can feel like you're walking around in like a fog of fatigue. So it is, if people have ongoing fatigue, there's so many wonderful things you can do so naturally, so easily for better energy, but that is something you can request the doctor pull You can do self ordering tests, like for us, it's like a 5 test. 

[00:31:51] Christa Biegler, RD: It's pretty simple to do with a caveat I will offer is that the reference range has continued to decline over the years. So to me personally, I think under 500 or under 450 is pretty low, but the reference range is I think as low as 275 now. Think that's a little silly and I think it's not very, I don't think there's really harm in it. 

[00:32:08] Christa Biegler, RD: I just like to, not supplement if people don't need stuff. There's a few other nuances, but the other one I'll offer, cause I just have this dramatic story. It wasn't that dramatic, but I remember this young client of mine one time that had low B12 and she had ting, a very hallmark sign besides fatigue and there's several others as well is tingly hands and feet. 

[00:32:27] Christa Biegler, RD: And her dad, I think had a heart attack, which people come with all these experiences and they're so traumatized that type of thing could happen to them. She said, I just thought I was having a heart attack. Like every time my hands, yeah, this is like where her brain goes and you know what, I'm actually having that conversation with someone else right now. 

[00:32:45] Christa Biegler, RD: It's like your brain, our brain is always recruiting negative. All the time, unhelpful thoughts. And it's you're trying to control your stress and your brain's over here. Like probably having a heart attack. It's like gravy. And it was just a B12 deficiency, right? Yeah. Really literally poor stomach acid. 

[00:33:03] Christa Biegler, RD: If you have a B12 deficiency, stomach acid is like numero uno to address it. So it's it affects lots of things, right? 

[00:33:10] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. And I think 

[00:33:10] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: that speaks volumes too, of when you say the reference range is declining and declining reference ranges at our doctor's office, at the lab are created based on the population. 

[00:33:19] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: It's an average of the population that goes to that lab and has that lab drawn. So if we see the level is the reference range is declining in the. Bottom and it's 275 or something like you said, that's because so many people are falling down in the bottom half of this. And so now they're saying good things about our society, 

[00:33:36] Christa Biegler, RD: Or at least the people, I think the other possibility I 100, 000 percent agree with you. 

[00:33:40] Christa Biegler, RD: And I think my other thought is that I wonder if the people getting the B12 drawn are usually those who are at most risk or lowest, right? Like I think most of the time it is certainly not something offered or discussed whatsoever. I think that the opinion is that this is happens in an older population. 

[00:33:59] Christa Biegler, RD: So my experience is that as the only time I've seen it really drawn. Yeah, and that's just, I have a, yeah, I have a skewed experience because why would people see me if they were getting everything they needed their provider, right? Of course, my experience is skewed in that way, of course, so I just want to just claim that for sure. 

[00:34:16] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, so we've covered a lot of. Great, simple, straightforward stuff that I think is so important for this entire digestive process. So soothing the lining, how to test, how to support stomach acid. We've talked a little bit about medications. Sometimes people would ask, and I don't know if we've done a good job talking about, This, and maybe we have, I'll just ask if there's anything we missed here about if people are wanting to really wean off of these acid blockers could, because they find out, oh, this is short term use. 

[00:34:43] Christa Biegler, RD: It really reminds me of steroid use as well, right? Meant for short term use, but accidentally gets used forever. When people are trying to wean off of this, is there, are there any other tips you might offer? 

[00:34:54] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Have patience with yourself. It's not a fast process. Everybody wants to like, snap at the finger and I'm better. 

[00:35:01] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And I don't have this anymore. And it's going to be a slow process. So give yourself a little grace over time. Maybe work with a practitioner who does some more of the functional lab testing to understand to is there some, what else is playing a role with this digestive dysfunction? 

[00:35:18] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Because with stomach acid being such a key driver, and we think about digestion as a north to south process, it's possibly hindering digestive processes that happen after the stomach. Like the gallbladder is definitely. triggered by having enough stomach acid. So releasing that bile, we could also have deficiency in those fat soluble nutrients. 

[00:35:40] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: If we don't have enough bile being released, and that goes back to stomach acid, we could also, the digestive enzyme piece that you hit on a little bit before that are released by the pancreas. When we have enough stomach acid, little mush ball of food called chyme will sit in the stomach until it is acidic enough that triggers the opening stomach into the small intestine. 

[00:36:02] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: And when that happens, then it triggers the gallbladder to release bile, the pancreas to release these digestive enzymes, which are all really important for this digestive process to break down our food. So we're not feeding bacteria, opportunistic bacteria, having the overgrowth of all this stuff happening. 

[00:36:19] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: So it's, Such a cascade of events that are happening that we really have to start like from the top down and assess what's going on. 

[00:36:26] Christa Biegler, RD: I love that. What Brandee is essentially saying the Clifton notes are is that low stomach acid can cause absolutely everything. And when she's talking about the gallbladder needing to be triggered that's essential for fatty acid breakdown and absorption, which could affect anything from your lipid levels to just dry skin. 

[00:36:44] Christa Biegler, RD: That, or thyroid function, to be honest. For sure. So it's like anything, anything like this is relevant to every human. No one is exempt here. It's ask the question could this be related? Yes. Indirectly. It could be related down the line. Yes, for sure. So it's if you don't digest absorb, then nothing really can work at its full potential. 

[00:37:02] Christa Biegler, RD: And your body is incredible at supporting you and protecting you. So it's always going to go like Rob Peter to pay Paul somewhere else. All the time. And so it does that until it like, it's I can't, Do things and then you think slow down, then you notice the end, that's how our health works. 

[00:37:17] Christa Biegler, RD: I would say, 

[00:37:18] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Oh, our symptoms arise and also Oh, I can't tolerate the symptom anymore. 

[00:37:22] Christa Biegler, RD: Exactly. It's because sometimes, even though acid reflux is a diagnosis, burping is not really a diagnosis. It's just it's just a clinical sign that you have. But often if people grew up around people who were doing that, they would think, I didn't even know it was unusual. 

[00:37:36] Christa Biegler, RD: I didn't even know, right? So often, that's the case with gas or just whatever. Even for me, it was like, Oh, I just have dry skin in the winter because my sisters also have it. We don't know what we don't know. Although everyone listening to this podcast, they know, 

[00:37:49] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: they all know they're smart. 

[00:37:50] Christa Biegler, RD: They're smart. So share this with a friend who doesn't know yet, which is amazing. 

[00:37:53] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. 

[00:37:54] Christa Biegler, RD: Brandee, did we miss anything on this great, like this important foundational topic of stomach acid? And then where can people find you online? 

[00:38:02] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: One last thing I have to say about stomach acid and ways to support it. 

[00:38:07] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Please don't chug a bunch of water before mealtime. Because then you're just diluting your stomach acid and diet culture told us that the way we eat less is to chug a bunch of water before we eat so that we're fuller. Please don't do that. You're just diluting your stomach acid and inhibiting your digestion. 

[00:38:22] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: You can drink, you can sip some water throughout your meal, but let's not chug water. And let's save drinking water to other times of the day. Let's enjoy our meal. 

[00:38:30] Christa Biegler, RD: I love it. 

[00:38:31] Christa Biegler, RD: Brandee. Yeah. Tell us where we can find you online. 

[00:38:33] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah. So you can find me at be collective wellness and that to be like a bumblebee. 

[00:38:37] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: My website is be collected wellness. com. My Instagram handle is be collective wellness. Those are the places I'm most active. 

[00:38:43] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on today. 

[00:38:46] Brandee Hommerding, CNTP: Yeah, for sure.