Those of us who did not graduate from medical institutes, but remember something from the school anatomy course, most often think that swallowed food is “digested” with a strong solution of hydrochloric acid. It’s a delusion. In fact, food is broken down by enzymes.
But pepsin only works in an acidic environment. That is, if there was no hydrochloric acid in our stomach, then the breakdown of substances would not occur. However, changing its quantity (and in any direction) is harmful and even dangerous. Increased acidity, as you might guess, leads to damage to the walls of the stomach – to gastritis and ulcers. Low is often associated with cancer. In the latter case, however, the causal relationships are not very clear: either due to low acidity, an oncological process develops, or vice versa – in the presence of atypical cells, acidity decreases.
