Suffering From Autoimmune Disease? Drinking Baking Soda Can Help You, Study Says

Have you been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease? It’s a condition wherein the immune system mistakenly attacks the healthy cells in your body. A new study shows that drinking baking soda can help combat the disease.

There are many types of autoimmune diseases. These include type 1 diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, and vitiligo, among others. If you have any of these diseases, there’s good news for you.

Baking soda could be a cheap alternative in treating autoimmune diseases.

According to a new study by scientists from the Medical College of Georgia, it has been found out that baking soda can be a cheap, over-the-counter, remedy to fight autoimmune diseases. A daily dose of baking soda can actually help reduce the inflammation caused by these diseases.

Published in the Journal of Immunology, the study shows that when mice models and healthy people consumed a baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) solution, it triggers the stomach to produce more acid to digest the next meal. Also, the solution signals the spleen to stay calm, instead of stimulating a protective immune response.

The mesothelial cells line all the organs like the spleen to help them slide against each other. In addition, they also function as immune cells. They contain little fingers, dubbed as microvilli, that can sense the environment. It warns the organs when there’s a potential invader and there’s a need for an immune response.

When baking soda is involved, these cells may tell the organ that there’s no need to mount an attack. The spleen doesn’t activate an army of protective white blood cells, promoting an anti-inflammatory environment.

Autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, causes painful inflammation in some parts of the body.

Dr. Paul O’Connor, renal physiologist in the MCG Department of Physiology at Augusta University, and lead author said:

“We think the cholinergic (acetylcholine) signals that we know mediate this anti-inflammatory response aren’t coming directly from the vagal nerve innervating the spleen, but from the mesothelial cells that form these connections to the spleen.”

The researchers also found that the spleen played an important role in the immune response. In fact, even the slightest change can make a difference. When the researchers removed or moved the spleen, it broke the mesothelial connections. The anti-inflammatory response was lost.

O’Connor hopes that drinking baking soda could someday provide the same results in people suffering from autoimmune diseases.

He added:

“You are not really turning anything off or on, you are just pushing it toward one side by giving an anti-inflammatory stimulus. It’s potentially a really safe way to treat inflammatory disease.”

But yes, don’t get too excited. The researchers said that further tests are needed, so you shouldn’t be mixing baking soda solution and drinking it. So far, only rodents and healthy people were tested and has not been fully studied in people with inflammatory diseases.