The significance of the acid-base balance in BICOM practice

Harald Sievert, Naturopath, Hanover

INTRODUCTION

Dear colleagues,

As BICOM therapists we deal with concepts which consider the patient as a whole, for the disease itself affects all his responsive, regulatory and compensatory mechanisms, and this is the basis of our approach.

After making a comprehensive diagnosis, our job consists of performing therapy which observes the holistic aspect in order to eliminate the disease’s “breeding ground” and, as far as possible, bring about a distinct improvement in the patient’s condition.

One “breeding ground” on which disease thrives is a permanent disturbance of the acid-base balance.

Treating this disturbance will help our patients regain their initial stable energetic state and a pleasant quality of life.

The key to this lies in the many different possibilities offered by BICOM resonance therapy, whether on its own or combined with classic naturopathic therapies.

GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE ACID-BASE BALANCE

It is common medical knowledge that body fluid fulfils many functions. The following review will describe the most important functions.

About 75 % of the human body is made up of water; the brain, for example, consists of 85 % water.

All essential biochemical and biophysical processes in the body are controlled by water or even made possible by water.

An adequate supply of water is therefore vital to maintain the body’s own control circuits. Distributing water systematically is the only way to ensure not only that sufficient water, but also the substances transported in the water (hormones, chemical messengers and nutrients) always reach our organs.

Water has other important properties in addition to its role as a means of transport and solution: a hydrolytic function in all aspects of the body’s metabolism, generation of what is known as hydroelectric power by the osmotic flow of water at the cell membrane and the formation of clusters to store and transmit energy and information.

“From water first was all created! And water is the all-sustaining!” (Goethe)

What is important above all is that water is both matter and, at the same time, energy.
Water is a carrier of electromagnetic oscillations and, as an electric dipole, is capable of responding to electromagnetic oscillations by being set in oscillation thereby altering its structure. This alteration of water’s structure is dependent upon the amount of energy it contains.
Consequently, as an energy and information carrier, water intervenes directly in the body’s energetic regulatory processes. When water quality is analysed, it is usually only the mineral and pollutant content which is studied and not its energetic and information content.

One fundamental problem is scarcely considered however, namely that the electromagnetic oscillations of the pollutants are transferred to the water. The acid-base balance is the basis for all our body’s vital functions and the basic requirement for good health and for the body’s own self-healing powers to function.

When energy is generated, carbon dioxide is produced in each body cell. This carbon dioxide is actually an aggressive substance which is generally screened out immediately by buffer substances if the body can make them available in sufficient quantities.
If this is not possible, carbon dioxide is deposited in the transport routes impeding the eliminating and detoxifying organs. The kidneys represent the central organ for eliminating acids.
The lungs function as a regulator, in that the carbon dioxide produced in the cells is first bound to the buffer system of the blood and reconverted back in the lungs and exhaled.
As the body’s chemical plant, the liver also represents an essential organ in the acid-base process.

The connective tissue serves as the body’s acid store (Pischinger’s system of basic regulation). If excessive amounts of waste products are deposited in the connective tissue, this results in predisposition to chronic diseases associated with wear such as arthrosis.
Poor diet, intestinal dysbacteria, oxygen deficiency and lack of exercise lead to increasing pressure on the eliminating organs and greater metabolic hyperacidity which, in turn, promotes the onset of chronic disease.

So, for example, from a holistic viewpoint, osteoporosis is the end result of the body’s life-long struggle to maintain the acid-base balance of its blood, even at the expense of degeneration of the body’s material (bone, dental enamel). Allergic reactions in the body follow this same pattern.

Extreme physical exertion also promotes hyperacidity through formation of lactate. Muscle spasms are often a sign that a critical lactate level has been exceeded. The coenzyme NADH+H plays a part here however as it can no longer absorb all the H ions.

Even cancers are promoted by chronic hyperacidity in the body.

Water performs such a variety of tasks within the body that the following list only reproduces its most important functions in summary form:

• Regulating the water balance
• Supplying all cells and tissue with water in the right quantity and quality
• Regulating the osmotic pressure of the fluid spaces
• Involved in regulating energy balance
• Involved in regulating electrolyte balance
• Energy carrier (water as highly sensitive store for electromagnetic fields) • Information carrier (water allows all parts of the human body to communicate with one another)
• Involved in regulating the acid-base balance
• Solvent for all kinds of water-soluble substances
• Purifying the body
• Means of transport
• Temperature regulation
• Buffer system

Water therefore has the role of medium for regulating all the body’s processes. The impulses to regulate these processes pass to their target organs via various routes:

• Neural via the nervous system
• Endocrine via the incretory hormone system
• Exocrine via the excretory hormone system
• Haemodynamic via the blood system
• Lymphatic via the lymph system
• Interstitial via the basic system
• Energetic via the acupuncture meridians
• Physical via the cells’ photon emissions
• Chemical via material reactions

Disturbances of the water balance caused by poor diet and/or incorrect behaviour or by the regulatory mechanisms’ dysfunction can adversely affect the bodily functions listed and even result in death. But a considerable or protracted loss of water for another reason can lead to a water deficit (dehydration). With chronic disease and especially in children and the elderly, dehydration is the main cause of related disturbance of biochemical and biophysical processes. Pain and chronic inflammation, for example, are often the result of dehydration.

Water intake and output are normally in a state of equilibrium, which means they are well balanced. The body excretes water via the skin and lungs and through the intestines and the kidneys. The body must replace the amount of water excreted by drinking. An adult person should absorb around 2.5 l fluid per day, about 1.5 l of which in the form of drink.

Water or fluid requirements are dependent on various factors though, such as weight, age, sex, diet, climatic conditions, exercise. Where possible, preferred drinks are mineral, spring and table water and fruit and vegetable juices and herbal teas. Alcoholic drinks such as beer, wine and spirits or soft drinks, coffee, cocoa or black tea should not be consumed in large quantities.

There are now a range of devices for treating drinking water physicomechanically. These use electrical or magnetic fields to significantly reduce the build-up of limescale and can alter the water structure biochemically and biophysically. Other common treatment methods include activated carbon filtration, use of ion exchangers, reverse osmosis and thermophysical treatments using steam distillation. A drinking water treatment to convey energetic information is also available.

However, hyperacidity could potentially disturb any cell or organ with the result that its secretions could also change into acids, together with impairment of the immune system and reduction in metabolic function. Disturbances to the water balance caused by external circumstances or by a person’s own incorrect behaviour undoubtedly impair sensitively disposed bodily functions and are therefore partly responsible for many diseases and injuries which may ultimately result in death. This includes agerelated dehydration which frequently results in chronic inflammation and pain.
Normally water intake and water output balance each other out. Water is excreted via the kidneys, the intestines, via the skin and through the lungs. The body must drink sufficient quantities of fluid to replace the amount excreted. The following review shows the consequences of hyperacidity and can be a useful aid when making diagnoses and determining the best therapeutic approach:

• Metabolic disturbances
• Hyperacidity of body fluid
• Hyperacidity of muscular tissue
• Suppression of the immune system
• Changes to the biological structure of enzymes and hormones
• Metabolic acids change their dissociation relationship
• Important buffer systems are overloaded
• Cells become stressed to the point of degeneration and cell death
• Rheumatic disorders
• Poor digestion
• Abdominal disorders
• Heart attack and stroke through local acidosis
• Increased risk of cancer

Laboratory results validated by orthodox medicine are often a useful aid when limiting the causes and the affected organ areas. However it is the task of the BICOM therapist to use energetic testing to search out the actual cause: environmental toxins, allergies, intolerances, viral and bacterial stresses, fungal infestations, etc.

BICOM DIAGNOSIS WITH DISTURBANCES OF THE WATER- AND ACID-BASE BALANCE

In addition to chemical laboratory parameters (haematocrit, minerals, kidney readings, pH levels, etc.), the bioenergetic test method is suitable for examining the relevant organs. As is so often the case, bioenergetic examination of the detoxifying and eliminating organs in particular is of crucial importance here. O

bviously details from the patient’s case history relating to their drinking habits (amount of fluid consumed, type of fluid drunk) are essential additional information.
This is often a simple yet relevant therapeutic approach.

A daily profile of the body’s acid-base ratio can easily be read off an indicator test strip. This method involving simple staining of an indicator paper and comparison with a colour chart provides evidence of current acid excretion in the urine without major technical outlay.

Patients should measure the pH of their urine and also of the saliva several times a day. I recommend 5 times per day. Particularly large differences between the pH of the urine and that of the saliva indicate systematic hyperacidity, which may also be intracellular!

After a period of about a week, you have a good idea of the pH situation in the body as a whole and can identify the degree of hyperacidity fairly accurately and decide upon methods of drug, die tary and BICOM therapy treatment.

Moreover this is a good means of appealing to the patient’s own sense of responsibility.

It should obviously be noted that the pH of the urine is heavily dependent on what the patient has eaten and that urine also shows a physiological acid output once a day!

In my practice I specifically advise patients whose clinical picture is predestined to be attributable to a disturbance of the acid-base balance to build up an acid-base profile over several days. As a rule I have already tested this disturbance bioenergetically. Bioenergetic testing takes place using electroacupuncture of base preparations/stimulation preparations produced by various manufacturers (e. g. Alkala, Basica, Sanuvis, Bullrichsalz, MeineBase product series, etc.).

Typical clinical pictures generally include all chronically manifest diseases which build up degenerative processes over the course of several years. These are predominantly diseases from the field of rheumatic diseases (arthritis, arthrosis, gout, fibromyalgia syndrome, spinal syndrome, collagenosis, etc.). But latent food intolerances, disturbed blood pressure regulation (especially hypertonia), intestinal diseases, psoriasis and naturally tumorous diseases as well are also associated with tissue acidosis and corresponding latent oxygen deficiency, with inadequate supply to and removal from the affected tissue.

Case study

I should like to describe this by way of a patient’s case study.
A patient in his early 50s complained of pronounced psoriasis on his arms, chest, upper abdomen and also attacks of psoriasis on his face at the hairline.
This had begun when he was about 18 and had become markedly more intense from the age of 30 occurring in bouts.
Bouts were exacerbated by acute infection, stress factors, unbalanced diet with large quantities of meat and especially alcohol consumption.

On his own initiative my patient had undergone a fasting cure at a clinic once a year for the past few years. In the course of this cure he lost a significant amount of weight and his psoriasis improved considerably.

But not long after returning home to his office with the usual stressful periods, and especially his excessive eating and drinking, he began putting on a large amount of weight over the following months and the psoriasis became worse. I tested this patient with EAP, recorded his initial values (all the terminal points and a range of relevant additional measurement points) and tested stressed meridians with the 5 element test kit and then went on to the stress ampoules from the Combined Test Technique test kit.

The main stresses lay in the “wood” and “metal” elements with the meridians of the large intestine, connective tissue and skin in “metal” and the liver in “wood”.

The situation in the intestine was characterised by fermentative dyspepsia and severe fungal infestation with a retoxic effect on the liver. As far as the immune system was concerned, the patient displayed an allergy to wheat and latent bacterial infection. In addition, amalgam tested as toxic and allergically sensitising.

The patient was recommended to follow a strict diet and classic allergy therapy was practised according to Dr Hennecke’s method. I conducted programs mainly for metabolism, acid-base balance and elimination and detoxication (primarily lymph and liver) in 17 therapy sessions held over an eighteen-month treatment period.

The symptoms improved visibly; the patient kept coming for three or four treatments then, once his condition had improved, I would not see him for weeks until he returned again because the symptoms had recurred.

And each time it was the same game.

He had eaten, and especially drunk, too much and had put on weight. Then at some point his skin reacted and he had another go at treatment.

The liver stress kept testing with its effect on the skin due to hyperacidity! These could be tested both with EAP and corresponding test substances (as mentioned earlier) and also by the patient himself with the usual test strip for measuring the pH of the urine, whose daily profile was generally way below 6.

Sometimes just one therapy session was sufficient to bring about a visible improvement in the patient. This involved a tested basic therapy followed by a selection of programs, which I should like to list here.

Mostly these were programs to stabilise the acidbase balance, together with programs to eliminate and detoxify the body:

BICOM THERAPY TO TREAT THE WATER- AND ACID-BASE BALANCE

Alongside dietary measures and accompanying remedy-based treatment, the following BICOM programs are available to the therapist.

1. Basic therapy following testing
2. Meridian- or organ-based follow-up therapy

3. Indication-based follow-up therapy

The tested bodily substances, such as saliva, blood, urine, stool, etc. are placed in the input cup and BRT minerals and BRT oil in the output cup and/ or the BICOM chip is used as memory device.

Activation of the eliminating organs is obviously also followed by causal therapy of the original disturbance using BICOM therapy (e. g. allergens, chemical and physical environmental contamination, bacteria, fungi, viruses, parasites, etc.).

Based on its composition, our food can be divided into basic and acid foodstuffs according to its mineral and amino acid content. As a rule, our diet should consist of 80 % alkaline foodstuffs and 20 % acid foodstuffs. Unfortunately precisely the opposite is often the case.

Base-forming foodstuffs are:
• Potatoes
• Milk (unpasteurised)
• Cream
• Leaf vegetables
• Root vegetables
• Non-sweet fruit
• Vegetable soup
• Stinging nettle
• Cress
• Parsley, chives
• Marjoram
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Fruit
• Almonds
• Dandelion
• Uncarbonated mineral water

A distinction is made with what are known as acid foodstuffs between acid donors and acid producers.

Acid donors are, for example:
• Meat
• Poultry
• Game
• Sausages
• Bacon
• Offal
• Meat soup
• Fish
• Cheese
• Quark (curd cheese)
• Hen’s eggs
• Pulses
• Asparagus
• Brussels sprouts
• Peanuts
• Vinegar
• Mustard
• Highly carbonated drinks
• Champagne
• Wholegrain cereals.

Acid producers are, for example:
• Manufactured sugar
• Sweets
• Chocolate
• Gateaux
• Ice-cream
• White flour products
• Pasta
• Biscuits
• cakes
• Hydrogenated and refined fats and oils
• Margarine
• Cheap salad dressings
• Hulled and polished grains
• Polished rice
• White bread, bread made with rye and wheat flour
• Coffee beans
• Lemonade
• Alcohol

Foodstuffs with a well-balanced acid-base balance:
• Water
• Natural fats and oils
• Butter
• Walnuts
• Combination of acid and alkali-donating foods

Treatment with remedies

An alkaline powder mixture has proved effective for years in treating the acid-base balance:
Sodium phosphate 10.0 g
Potassium bicarbonate 10.0 g
Calcium carbonate 100.0 g
Sodium bicarbonate 80.0 g
M. F. powder

The patient takes 1 teaspoonful 2-3 times per day in ¼ l water 1 hour before and after meals. The pharmaceutical industry also produces various preparations.

PISCHINGER’S SYSTEM OF BASIC REGULATION

Pischinger’s system of basic regulation refers to the soft connective tissue with its organ cells, blood vessels, lymph vessels and nerve endings. It represents the underlying and, taken as a whole, largest coherent organ system for regulating the body. The organ cells are not in direct contact with one another, but each substance supplied to and removed from the organ cells must pass through this connective tissue. All nutrients which are to reach the organ cells must be transported from the capillary region through this connective tissue. Conversely, all end products of metabolism which are to pass from the cells back into the blood and for subsequent excretion, must also be transmitted through this connective tissue.

Consequently harmful substances which can no longer be excreted may be deposited in the connective tissue. This also concerns the transport and possible storage of external toxins. This can, in extreme cases, result in on-going transport through the connective tissue being disrupted, leading to an accumulation of waste products in the connective tissue. With latent oxygen deficiency and latent hyperacidity this results in what is known as connective tissue blockage which can lead to a complete blockage of the body’s own self-healing powers and the onset of chronic disease.

Initial symptoms of this metabolic disorder are loss of vitality, poor performance, lack of concentration and other general symptoms and ultimately this systemic stress leads to organic diseases.

Overall the accumulation of toxic waste products in the connective tissue occupies a central role which is involved in causing virtually every chronic disease process.

The connective tissue is more than just a tissue which connects and supports various organs. It is a highly independent organ structure with numerous vital tasks. As a result, toxin elimination, from the basic system right down to the eliminating and detoxifying organs, represents a basis for all successful naturopathic therapy.

Depending on the clinical picture and bioenergetic test results, the basic system and the remaining eliminating organs are activated through meridianbased and/or indication-based follow-up therapies.

A large proportion of the body fluid is located in the connective tissue. Body fluid has an outstanding ability to store electromagnetic oscillations and consequently information. Both physiological and pathological oscillations can have a positive and negative effect on the body through the body fluid.

BICOM resonance therapy represents the essential treatment here by stabilising Pischinger’s basic system and toxin eliminating organs.

Working together with other naturopathic methods, the body’s own self-healing powers are set in motion and, once the toxins have been mobilised and eliminated, the whole body reverts back to being a vital biological system. If the environment is conducive, bacteria and viruses cause not only acute and chronic but chronic recurrent diseases.

Orthodox medicine is initially effective in treating acute diseases with drugs, yet what is termed residual toxicosis remains in 70-80 % of all chronically ill patients. Alongside the primarily toxic problem, this represents a dangerous sound board for recurrent infections and stresses acting on the basic regulatory system.

The relevant bacteria and viruses are available for testing in Schumacher’s identification test kit and also in the BICOM Combined Test Technique test kits. Depending on the clinical picture, especially if retoxic stress and/or chronic infection and/or focal stress is suspected, thorough testing of the individual types of pathogen is recommended.

Basic regulation system