Drinking a baking-soda solution may ease arthritis, new research suggests.
The kitchen cupboard staple, which is also known as bicarbonate of soda, may prevent rheumatoid arthritis patients’ immune systems attacking their joints, which leads to painful inflammation, a study found.
After just two weeks of drinking water with baking soda, people produced fewer immune cells that drive inflammation and more than dampen it down, the research adds.
Study author Dr. Paul O’Connor, from the Medical College of Georgia, said: ‘The shift from inflammatory to anti-inflammatory is happening everywhere. We saw it in the kidneys, we saw it in the spleen, we see it in the blood.
‘It’s potentially a really safe way to treat inflammatory disease.’
Previous research suggests bicarb enables up to 20 percent of women experiencing difficult labors to avoid Caesarean sections by neutralizing acids in their wombs.
Rheumatoid arthritis affects around 1.3 million adults in the US.
Drinking a baking-soda solution may ease arthritis, new research suggests
How does baking soda ease arthritis?
Baking soda is thought to act on the cells that line internal organs. These cells, known as mesothelial, warn the body when there is an ‘intruder’ and an immune response needs to be launched.
Drinking bicarb is thought to cause the spleen to ‘tell’ mesothelial cells not to launch an immune response.
Dr. O’Connor said: ‘Certainly drinking bicarbonate affects the spleen and we think it’s through the mesothelial cells.’
The researchers, who asked healthy people to drink a bottle of baking soda-infused water, also found the beverage reduces T cells, which are also part of the immune system and are associated with inflammation.
These results continued for at least four hours.
The findings, published in the Journal of Immunology, further suggest drinking baking soda causes people’s spleens to enlarge, which may be due to it creating an anti-inflammation response.
The kitchen staple, which is also known as bicarbonate of soda, may prevent rheumatoid arthritis patients’ immune systems attacking their joints, which leads to inflammation
Baking soda helps to avoid dangerous Caesarean sections
Research released in January suggested that after drinking bicarb dissolved in water, between 17 and 20 percent of women having slow or difficult labors give birth naturally, without harming their babies.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today show, study author Professor Susan Wray from the University of Liverpool explained that baking soda used in the study is the standard type available in supermarkets.
The researchers believe consuming bicarb is a simple, cost-effective way to improve the well-being of mothers during labor all over the world.
They analyzed 200 women who had difficult or slow labors, some of which then drank water containing baking soda.
One hour later, those who needed it were given the hormone oxytocin, which is the standard-of-care during slow deliveries and causes the uterus to contract.
Those not given bicarb were administered oxytocin immediately.
Around one-in-four births in the UK is carried out via c-section. Although usually safe, the procedure can cause blood clots, excessive bleeding and womb infections.
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