Nutricost Betaine HCl + Pepsin 790mg, 240 Capsules - Gluten Free & Non-GMO

The instructions on the bottle say to take one capsule a day with water…Although the supplement works very well, the instructions are nonsense and misleading.Because my system seems to produce little or no hydrochloric acid I have been taking HCL for many years now - as many as a dozen with a meal.You NEVER take HCL on an empty stomach for fear of doing damage to your stomach lining. You always take it with food and not until you have taken at least a couple of bites.How many capsules you are required to take depends on your individual needs. I may be an extreme case, but the clinic that originally got me started on these capsules told me that eight with a meal is not an uncommon number once you get older. Having said that many people get by with just a couple or three capsules. The only way you can figure out how many you need is to take one capsule and if it doesn’t irritate your stomach, you try two with the next meal, and keep going from there until you hit your sweet spot.Unfortunately, it is trial and error because different foods require different amounts of HCL. Wheat is my nemesis and there’s never any question of eating something like a steakOn a side note, it is amazing how many people get prescribed antacids when they complain of acid reflux. A large percentage of them are very likely to have the opposite problem - low acid. This is probably because they do not have enough acid to digest the meal therefore it seems to just sit there and come back into their throat.But does the medical profession ever even CONSIDER low acid? Of course not! My son was diagnosed with too much acid however, he did try one tablet with a meal which made his stomach burn pretty badly, so he genuinely hd too much acid in his system.If you ever find that you have taken too many tablets and your stomach is either burning or hurting. All you have to do is take a few sips of whole milk. Problem solved.

I've had a cough for years and tried everything. Finally, I found a doctor (chiropractor) who told me to take this. It was days before I noticed I hadn't coughed! My family was sick of me coughing and my friends too. But only my family would tell me. I was sick of it too. If you're coughing too, you need MORE acid, not less. Betaine with pepsin gives you that. I was told not to take Betaine without pepsin. When I found this one, I knew it was right and would work. And it has. I'm very relieved and thank the makers of this product.

If you're having some gut issues especially with beef this is one of my go to supps

I take these after a meal to help with my digestive enzymes. They seem to help.

had emergency gallbladder surgery last year, and continued to have digestive issues afterwards, was recommended this product by a family member that also had their gallbladder removed, and said it helps in digestion. they were right, and now i take one before every meal, and have rarely had the digestive pain i had before, no side effects, and no taste or smell when taking them

I had been using the Thorne brand betaine HCL with enzymes for a long time, but it's been out of stock so I tried this. This is much cheaper, it's a similar formulation and it does work very well - in fact, too well, at least for me.One of these capsules will make me very sick to my stomach unless I take it with a really large high fat, high protein meal. I've been taking HCL for ~6 years for reflux, and it works very effectively to control it but I have to have the dose just right. This is too strong for me most of the time. I sometimes take 1 capsule of the Thorne brand with a regular meal and it's perfect, but 1 capsule of this stuff will make me really sick to my stomach unless I take it with a meal that's something like half a package of bacon scrambled into 5 eggs, a bunch of cheese, etc. I do that sometimes, but I don't do it often.I would only recommend these if you have really bad reflux symptoms, or regularly eat really large meals or have severely low stomach acid. A year ago this would have worked better for me, because my reflux was worse and I had to take 3 capsules of the Thorne HCL with every meal. Now I often go without, or just take 1. But 1 of these is usually way too strong and makes me sick. If I take too much of the Thorne I will have the same symptoms so that's why I say it's a dosage or strength issue.Another weird thing about this is that every time I put it in my mouth it makes me cough. It's like I inhale a tiny bit of the HCL and it irritates my lungs. Not a lot, just a little; just one cough. But I've taken a lot of supplements over the last 40 years and never experienced anything like this. I also noticed from the moment I opened the bottle that the capsules would leave kind of a sticky grit on my fingers. Both of these things happened every time I used it from when I first opened the bottle to when I finished it.I never saw a capsule that I could tell was broken or leaking. I have had plenty of experiences over the years of a capsule doing that but I generally never noticed until the bottom of the bottle and there would just be some powder there, and often I could identify the failed capsule. So I'm not sure if one of the capsules did leak or if this is just normal for the way they encapsulate the product. It seems clear that this powder is stickier than most and gets all over stuff, in any case.Amazon no longer carries the Thorne but I can get it directly from their website so I have gone back to that and have to use this on those rare occasions when I feel ravenous and eat a giant meal.

These are the best to use. The capsules work fast, so food digestion is something you don't even think about..

Acidifies stomach and helps with digestion and nutrient absorption