Achlorhydria

You need adequate stomach acid to kill opportunistic pathogens, help properly digest food and maintain optimal health.  Stomach acid plays a key role in the digestion of protein, carbohydrates and fat.  The breakdown and absorption of nutrients occurs at an optimum rate only within a narrow range of acidity in the stomach. If there isn’t enough acid, the normal chemical reactions required to absorb nutrients is impaired. Over time this can lead to diseases such as anemia, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, depression and more.

There are four primary consequences of low stomach acid and acid stopping drugs:

• Increased bacterial overgrowth
• Impaired nutrient absorption
• Decreased resistance to infection
• Increased risk of cancer and other diseases

Low stomach acid causes bacterial overgrowth in the stomach and other parts of the intestine. Bacterial overgrowth causes maldigestion of carbohydrates (due to decreased pancreatic enzyme secretion), which in turn produces gas. This gas increases the pressure in the stomach, causing the lower oesophageal sphincter (LES) to malfunction. The malfunction of the LES allows acid from the stomach to enter the oesophagus, thus producing the symptoms of heartburn and GERD.

By lowering stomach acid and increasing stomach pH, acid-suppressing drugs increase the risk of Helicobacter pylori infection and subsequent development of duodenal or gastric ulcers.

It’s entirely plausible that acid-stopping medications - proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), H2 blockers and acid neutralizers - increase the risk of stomach cancer by at least two distinct mechanisms:

1. inducing hypergastrinemia, a condition of above-normal secretion of the hormone gastrin. This is a potentially serious condition that has been linked to adenocarcinoma – a form of stomach cancer. A standard daily dose of a PPI typically results in up to a three-to-fourfold increase in gastrin levels.
2. elevating concentration of nitrites in the gastric fluid -  in a healthy stomach, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) removes nitrite from gastric juice by converting it to nitric oxide. However, this process is dependent upon the pH of the stomach being less than 4.