Re: When to take Betaine HCL and Digestive Enzymes?

 betaine is safe if used as directed and it is for therapeutic use, not long term dependency...in this way it will induce the stomach to produce suffiecient acidity upon demand (when eating) and will not replace the body's natural desire to produce HCL. two things strongly stimulate acid production-PROTEIN and STOMACH ACID...so taking Betaine HCL stimulates the body to produce MORE ACID...not to stop producing. always get betaine HCL with pepsin

I strongly disagree. There are various factors that affect stomach acid levels including nutrition and methyl donation. The problem is that stomach acid levels generally decline with age. As the levels decline this interferes with the body's ability to absorb the nutrients required to form the stomach acid including zinc and B6. This leads to further reductions in stomach acid formation, leading to a loss to a loss of nutrient absorption..... And the cycle continues. Therefore, if the body is not producing stomach acid properly then the presence of protein is not going to raise stomach acid properly. And low stomach acid is not going to automatically stimulate the production of more acid. If that were the case then lack of stomach acid (hypochlorhydria) would not be as rampant as it is. The presence of stomach acid, or betaine HCl, does not stimulate the formation of more stomach acid either. If this were the case then you could take one betaine HCl tablet, which would stimulate the production of more stomach acid,  which in turn would stimulate the production of more stomach acid, and again the cycle would continue. Therefore there would be no need to take massive amounts of betaine HCl as you make in your later statement "and raise by one per meal until you feel heat...this could get up to 19 pills". Again, if raising stomach acid increased more stomach acid then you would only need one betaine HCl tablet to start the acid production cycle. Of course this does not happen. In a normally functioning stomach the stomach will respond to things entering the stomach by releasing stomach acid from specialized cells in the stomach wall. When a proper amount of acid is released to adjust the pH to the proper level for digestion then the acid release is halted.