Diet's effect on stomach acid acidity

For many years people believed that stomach acidity evolved in order to break down more complex food sources. A new study done at North Carolina State University flips the tables on our understanding of this evolutionary relationship. Researchers analyzed the diets of many species and concluded that the animals that had the highest stomach acidity were scavengers. Scavengers tend to eat dead or decaying matter and are at the highest risk of infection or disease from the food they consume. The stomachs high acidity helps to screen out microbes who could be harmful to the animals gut. The thing I found most interesting was that humans, while considered omnivores, have a very strong stomach acidity that is in a normal range for a scavenger to have. Researchers concluded that this could be due to different medicines and treatments that humans undergo. New research is being done to determine the effects that these medicines have on our micro biome and how they alter our health for better or worse.


Below is a vulture, a classic example of a scavenger.