Benefits of Sodium Bicarbonate Supplements
From Whitening Your Teeth to Helping You Train Harder for Longer
If you’ve tried creatine, pre-workouts and protein powder and still want that extra little edge, the solution might already be in your kitchen. Sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda, is one of the world’s true miracle ingredients. Not only can it de-funk everything from fridges to running shoes, it can also be used to polish steel, kill weeds in your garden, and cure canker sores. But more and more people are realizing it has amazing health properties as well, enough to make it a worthwhile addition to any athlete or fitness enthusiast’s supplement stack.
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Skeptical? We don’t blame you. But if you read on, you’ll learn all the ways that a little dab of daily baking soda can benefit your health and improve your athletic performance.
The Benefits of Adding a Sodium Bicarbonate Supplement
First, let’s preempt your likely first question: can I really use regular baking soda as a health supplement? The answer is yes! The baking soda you buy in stores is perfectly adequate, though you can find sodium bicarbonate sold in tablet form, or in powder form in more health-conscious packaging, if you prefer. You can just swallow the powder if you like, but most people will prefer to add a small portion to a glass of water to make swallowing easier.
1. Alleviates Symptoms of Heartburn & Indigestion
If you suffer from regular indigestion or heartburn and want an easy solution, having some sodium bicarbonate on hand might be the fastest and cheapest way to find relief. The root cause of so many digestive issues is acid reflux, where stomach acids escape the safe confines of the stomach and burn sensitive parts of the digestive system, especially the esophagus, so downing an alkaline solution like baking soda and water can rapidly re-balance the pH levels of your stomach and put an end to your suffering.
Fun biology fact: your body can even produce its own sodium bicarbonate, via the pancreas, but when acid levels rise too high, the pancreas can’t keep up, which is why a timely supplement of exogenous sodium bicarbonate can make all the difference.
2. Combats Bad Breath & Whitens Teeth
The stomach isn’t the only place that an excess of acidity can cause all kinds of problems. Harmful and odor-causing bacteria in your mouth thrive on acidity, multiplying at lightning speed and giving off one very pleasant main symptom: terrible breath.
To turn things around, you can take that same solution of baking soda and water and swish it around in your mouth for 30 seconds, multiple times a day. The baking soda will help alkalize your mouth’s microbiome, gradually neutralizing those harmful bacteria and hopefully eliminating or at least reducing your bad breath.
And if you want to go the extra mile and whiten your teeth, use a little less water and in your water-and-baking-soda solution and you’ll end up with a more paste-like consistency. Apply this to your teeth and scrub and the abrasion will actually help remove stains without damaging your enamel, leaving your teeth whiter than before.
3. Reduces Inflammation
Unless you’ve been living in a cave or in a remote part of the jungle, you’ve probably heard something about the scourge of inflammation. The more we come to understand the human body, the more we learn that inflammation plays a crucial role in a host of bad health outcomes, from cancer and autoimmune diseases to arthritis and joint pain. For athletes, especially, managing inflammation is a key part of recovery, and proper recovery is vital to being able to maintain training intensity.
And as you might have guessed, baking soda supplementation can really help your body manage inflammation levels. The earliest research came from a 2018 study published in The Journal of Immunology that found anti-inflammatory properties of a basic baking soda and water mixture, first on a rat population and then in human testing. When they examined their results, they found that supplementing with sodium bicarbonate caused a specific type of white blood cell known as macrophages to not only stop producing signals that cause inflammation response but actively send out counter signals to calm the body down.
4. Boosts Athletic Performance
Finally, sodium bicarbonate supplementation has been shown to boost athletic performance in high-intensity activities such as sprinting or playing a fast-paced sport like soccer or basketball. If you’re just casually lifting weights or jogging, however, you can probably skip your baking soda dose, since it only takes effect when your body engages its anaerobic pathways to supply your muscles with ATP.
A byproduct of anaerobic exercise is an excess of hydrogen, which actually changes the pH levels inside your muscles, making them more acidic. And acidic muscles don’t function as effectively; in fact, if there’s enough acidity, they’ll shut down entirely by cramping, a sure sign that your body wants you to stop pushing your limits. However, if you drink a little mixture of water and baking soda before or during exercise, you can actually re-alkalize your muscles and recover some of that lost performance.
So whether you're chasing better overall health and well-being or want to improve your athletic performance when you're pushing your body to its limits, it might be worth re-purposing baking soda as a supplement.
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