A couple of you followed up on the reflux and pepsin piece from a couple of weeks ago, and both are worth passing on.
Liz wrote in with a genuinely useful correction. Not all bicarbonate of soda is guaranteed free of trace aluminium compounds, as some cheaper or non-food-grade versions can contain them. If you’re making your own alkaline water, it’s worth checking the label specifically says something like “100% sodium bicarbonate” or “food grade”, rather than assuming any box labelled bicarbonate of soda is automatically suitable to drink.
And Mandy, whose story started that piece, wrote back to say thank you, and made a point worth repeating: for people on PPIs for genuine reasons, alongside anti-inflammatory medication, for example, staying on them is often still the right call. Diet and lifestyle changes matter most for everyone else. It’s a fair, important balance, and I’m glad it came through clearly.
The point about proteases, like pepsin, needing to be handled carefully in the gut also prompted another reply, but one that took the thread somewhere completely different.
A reader wrote in with a genuinely thoughtful question about using proteases or proteolytic enzymes as they are commonly referred to, systemically. These are protein-digesting enzymes like serrapeptase and bromelain that get absorbed into the system to work around the body and not in digestion. As it turns out, we are familiar with them, as this is exactly the territory this newsletter first grew out of.
Robert, who founded this newsletter, was the one who brought serrapeptase to the wider market in the first place, and he spent years as its most passionate advocate. He called it “the miracle enzyme,” and he genuinely meant it. It wasn’t a marketing line to him. It was real conviction, built on believing deeply that this enzyme could help people the way conventional medicine often couldn’t.
And what I find genuinely hopeful is that researchers are still taking serrapeptase seriously enough to study it properly. It’s currently part of a real clinical trial investigating whether it can help with a serious lung condition. Whatever that trial finds, it’s a sign the story isn’t finished, and decades after Robert first championed it, people are still asking the right questions.
It is also worth noting too, that real trials show bromelain can ease pain and improve recovery after minor surgery, and it held up reasonably well against conventional anti-inflammatory medication in another study.
Between the two, I think that’s a fair place to leave it: one enzyme still waiting for its evidence to catch up with Robert’s belief in it, and another quietly proving him right about the family of enzymes he was so drawn to, even if it’s not the one he championed loudest. Enzymes were where it all began for Robert, and for Good Health Naturally itself, so it feels right to keep exploring them properly, with the same curiosity he had, just held to today’s evidence as we go.
I hope your September is off to a good start, whatever that looks like for you this year. As always, if something here resonated or there is a topic you would like me to dig into, just hit reply. I read every message.
