The Mighty Sodium/Potassium Ratio
How high is your vitality?
The electrical potential of our cells is important for healing that cannot be stressed enough and can even hold back a healing program if not successfully treated.
The amazing ability of a hair test is not only revealing a persons oxidation rate, or metabolic rate, but its ability to reveal the cellular voltage! Cells act as a capacitors.
Its function is to pump sodium out of the cells while moving potassium into the cells. This maintains the correct osmotic balance and electrical charge of each cell of our bodies.
"The fundamental unit of all biological life is the cell, a mass of bio-molecules in watery solution surrounded by a cell membrane. One of the characteristic features of a living cell is that it controls the exchange of electrically charged ions across the cell membrane and therefore the electrical potential of its interior relative to the exterior."- Scholarpedia
"According to our simplification, the inside and the outside of the cell are both solutions of various salts in water. As opposed to the cell membrane, salt water constitutes quite a good conductor because there are free ions that can transport electrical charges. What we have then is two conductors (the inside and the outside of the cell), separated by an insulator (the membrane). This makes it possible to have different amounts of electrical charges inside and outside the cell."- Scholarpedia
"The Na+K+pump which moves two potassium ions into the cell and, at the same time, three sodium ions out of the cell. After this pump has been running for some time, the concentration of potassium inside the cell becomes larger than that outside, and the concentration of sodium becomes larger outside than inside. Running the pump requires energy, which is provided to the pump in the usual energy currency of the cell, the ATP→ADP process."- Scholarpedia
This is why the NA/K ratio is considered the vitality ratio!
Dr. Paul Eck found that a low Na/K ratio is associated with chronic infection somewhere in the body; common sites are the eyes, ears, sinuses, teeth, intestines, joints and elsewhere.
The infection may be sealed off or in areas with poor circulation therefore blood circulation and nutritional remedies or antibiotics have difficulty reaching the infected area.
Indicator of a Catabolic State
A low Na/K ratio also indicates tissue breakdown or catabolism. This can have many causes, including nutrient deficiencies, toxic metals/toxic chemicals, and impairment of the metabolic pathways of glucose utilization and energy production.
An Inflammation Indicator
Higher aldosterone (sodium) secretion than cortisol is more associated with inflammation because aldosterone is more of an inflammatory hormone, whereas cortisol and cortisone are more anti-inflammatory hormones.Therefore a high na/k ratio can reveal inflammation within the body and can relate to c-reactive protein levels.
Physical symptoms
Dr. Eck discovered that a low sodium/potassium ratio is associated with fatigue, sugar and carbohydrate intolerance, allergies, adrenal weakness, chronic infections, liver and kidney stress, cardiovascular stress, reduced immune response and possibly malignancy
A person with a high sodium/potassium ratio may be secreting more aldosterone, in relation to cortisol. Therefore since there is more pro-inflammatory hormones in circulation, a tendency for inflammation occurs in the body.