Humic Acids and the Soil
On average when healthy topsoil is analyzed, researchers find it is composed of roughly 45% minerals, 50% air and water, 2% plant and animal remains, 2% humus and 1% living organisms that include bacteria, fungi and insects.
Decompostion of animal and plant remains have multiple steps in which fungi, bacteria and insects essentially eat and breakdown these remains continually until they can no longer be reduced. These biochemicals form into highly stable end-products that cannot be broken down further. This process is known as humification and can take hundreds of years to occur. The end result is humus.
Humus is composed of humin, humic acids and fulvic acids. Humus provides a food substrate for the healthy microbiota in the soil. It also has the ability to chelate minerals, meaning bind to them, because humus is negatively charged. It is this electric charge that draws the minerals in the soil to humus for binding. Plant roots also have a stronger negative charge than humus, and that draws the humus molecules to plant roots to release the minerals for plant uptake.
Its worth noting at this point that the substrate effect and the chelation ability also work within the human body. In the former, humic acids act as a prebiotic to feed the healthy bacteria of the gut and fulvic acid is able to use its charge to shuttle minerals into a cell and waste out of a cell.
In an ideal farming environment, crops are rotated, fields are left fallow, and compost is added to the soil to replenish minerals and Humus. In a small farm or garden environment, eating clean yet unwashed produce directly from the plant will transfer both soil-based probiotics (link here) and humus to humans.
Due to large-scale industrial farming which includes mono-cropping, synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use, minerals, humus and SBOs are largely absent from the soil. Extensive washing of the produce by the time it reaches the market further diminishes SBOs and humus.
The ideal solution is growing and eating as much food as possible using traditional methods. However, most of us don’t have the time so one can take these humus in capsule, liquid or powder form to get these necessary components.
Consuming food sprayed with glyphosate and liberty link (the glyphosate replacement) or contaminated ground water has been proven to create Leaky Gut. Leaky Gut is implicated in a host of inflammatory conditions including but not limited to food and environmental allergies. Regular humic acid ingestion has been shown to repair the tight junctions in the gut lining and the respiratory lining. Humic acids also have the ability to bind and remove glyphosate rendering it inert.
Key benefits of Humic and Fulvic Acids include:
They are a prebiotic, acting as a food substrate for the gut microbiota to increase and maintain the amount of good bacteria.
Provide and increase mineral uptake in the gut and the cell
Detoxify by removing waste and toxins from the cell and gut
Have the ability to inhibit viral activity including Coxsackie A9 virus, influenza A virus and herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and type 2 (HIV-2), cytomegalovirus (CMV) and vaccinia virus.
They increase energy through optimizing mitochondrial function likely through the increase ATP, the biochemical that powers our cells.
They act as an immune modulator by decreasing proinflammatory markers but also activate the immune system to kill bacteria.
In Ayurvedic medicine, Humic and Fulvic acids is known as Shilajit and has been used traditionally to increase energy and sexual vitality. Shilajit exists in the high altitude himalayas as a tar-like resin that is scraped off rocks. Shilajit has also shown to balance sex hormones in both males and females.
Here are our top picks for Humic and Fulvic Acids:
Ion Biome https://intelligenceofnature.com/
Purblack Shilajit https://purblack.com/