Digestion: Breaking Down How Your Body Breaks Down Food

Digestion can be complicated. But understanding it is the first step in conquering all-too-common gut problems that arise from our modern diets. Here’s a basic breakdown of digestion and the role stomach acid plays in your body’s ability to absorb food.

Digestion happens through two different processes: mechanical and chemical. For example, chewing food is a mechanical process that breaks down food. This sets up stomach acid to be able to process the food chemically.¹

Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is a chemical secreted during digestion to create an acidic environment that breaks down the food, especially proteins, so the nutrients can be absorbed.

If there is not enough HCl in the stomach, nutritional and digestive issues can occur. Betaine HCl is an important stomach acid that helps support digestion especially if it is taken with a meal.²

Betaine HCl Stomach Acid

The stomach environment must have the right amount of acidity for proper digestion to occur; that means a pH of between 1.0 and 3.0.³ Betaine HCl stomach acid helps support proper pH in the stomach, which also helps support overall digestion.⁴

The gastric juices in the stomach that help break down foods are a mixture of water, mucus, hydrochloric acid, and pepsin, which is the principal enzyme that is needed for protein digestion.⁵ Betaine HCl is often combined with pepsin to be taken immediately following a meal to help support digestion. The recommended amount is 250 mg of betaine and 130 mg of pepsin.

The digestive process ensures that nutrients from foods get absorbed. For this to happen, making sure your body has enough betaine HCl and pepsin is crucial for healthy digestion and good gut feelings.

References

1. Patricia JJ, Dhamoon AS. Physiology, digestion. StatPearls. 2022;Sept 12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544242/?report=reader#_NBK544242_pubdet_
2. Guilliams TG, Drake LE. Meal-time supplementation with betaine HCl for functional hypochlorhydria: what is the evidence. Integr Med. 2020;19(1):32-36. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7238915/
3. Yang E, Yu K, Lee S. Prediction of gastric pH-mediated drug exposure using physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling: a case study of itraconazole. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol. 2023;12(6):865-877. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10272297/
4. Yago M, Frymoyer AR, Smelick GS, et al. Gastric re-acidification with betaine HCl in healthy volunteers with rabeprazole-induced hypochlorhydria. Mol Pharm. 2013;10(11):4032-4037. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946491/
5. Heda R, Toro F, Tombazzi CR. Physiology, pepsin. StatPearls. 2023;May 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537005/?report=reader#_NBK537005_pubdet_