Health knowledge made personal
I would say that a herbal tea containing "Mint, and Anise (or Fennel seeds)" would neutralize the acid effectively.
Regards, Puneet
www.herbscancure.com
You've got a chemistry problem here. Ascorbic acid (contained in lemon juice) is not a powerful enough acid to test your hypothesis. The pH of the human stomach averages a value of 2-3 (blood pH = 7.4). to buffer an acid you need a basic compound and nothing that I'm aware of in tea leaves is a buffer. Also, in living stomach cells, the addition of food or water stimulates acid secretion from the parietal cells - thus the pH gets lower. You will also have to standardize the steep time and type of tea - otherwise the variables become too many and your results are due to chance not experimental design.
I suspect that your study will be negative, but as detailed above, you cna not rule out a false negative.
Good luck,
Daniel A.
When I say "Herbal tea", i don't really mean "something which contains black tea, or any kind of tea" - All i mean is a hot beverage containing herbs like mint, anise and fennel
Regards, Puneet
Write a comment:
|
Posted by Adrienne C.
My 9 year old daughter is doing her science fair project on "What herbal tea neutralizes stomach acid the best?". We are going to use lemon juice as an equivalent for stomach acid and she is going to test chamomile, licorice root, meadowsweet herb, marshmallow root, fennel seed and anise. This is a personal study as well as she suffers from GERD and acid reflux and would like to know what natural remedy would help her with this. Would you mind answering the following questions for us?
1. What herbal teas do you think would neutralize stomach acid the best?
2. What properties make this good for acid reflux or GERD?
3. From the following list of herbal teas that I am testing, which do you fell will do the best?
· Chamomile
· Anise Tea
· Fennel Seeds
· Marshmallow Root
· Licorice Root
· Slippery Elm
· Meadowsweet
4. What advice could you give me for testing my hypothesis?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Adrienne Conde
adrienneconde@hotmail.com