Transcription
So today we're going to talk about the benefits and the dangers of baking soda, which is sodium bicarbonate. Now, I don't know if you knew this, but your body actually makes baking soda. Okay, it's made by the pancreas and it's triggered by a hormone in your small intestine, which gets signaled when the acid comes through from the stomach. And the stomach, you have this super, super acidic mixture between one and three. And then it goes into the small intestine, which should go up to like maybe six or seven, uh, sometimes even like 7.5.
Now, if you know anything about pH, this is like an extreme difference of pH. And so this is very important for several reasons to have these different pHs. But the neutralization of that stomach acid is very, very important. Which I want to mention, if we don't neutralize the stomach acid, then we get a severe irritation and inflammation in our small intestine. But it's that baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, that's coming from the pancreas, it's going to help neutralize this acid.
Now, why is this so important? Well, because the majority of the enzymes that are needed for digestion are activated. They get turned on by a much higher pH. I mean, if you think about, if you just look at the stomach, pepsin, that's a very powerful protein enzyme, and that's activated by a pH between like 1 to 1.5. So with that enzyme, you need a very strong stomach acid. But with the other enzymes, right in your small intestine, coming out from the pancreas, you need a much higher, more alkaline pH for those enzymes to work, like trypsin, for example, which is a very important enzyme with a pH of 7.5 to 8. And so this means that if you don't have the bicarbonates to kind of buffer this pH, and we still have too much acidity coming down in the small intestine, that enzyme trypsin cannot work. It's useless. Even lipase, the lipid enzyme that comes from the pancreas, needs a pH of eight. And so I hope you can now see that the vital importance of having the right pH is in the right place are essential for digestion, especially when you talk about enzymes. And this is why you can't really, uh, say that, oh yeah, the body is alkaline or the body is too acidic. It's a combination of a lot of different pHs. And so you need to understand this if you're going to try to alkalize the body or even acidify the body. Because as soon as you start to alkalize the body, like with some remedy, like even baking soda, it has to go through the stomach to get to different places.
Now, bicarbonate is not just produced by your pancreas. It's also produced by the little tubes that connect in between the liver and the gallbladder. The bile ducts actually secrete bicarbonate as well, which is interesting. Let's say, for example, you have a problem with your pancreas that you're not able to produce enough enzymes, which is not very, uh, common because there's a huge reserve in your pancreas for these enzymes, but it definitely occurs. And if you have a deficiency, the treatment is taking enzymes, but they rarely, if ever, include bicarbonate with that. So here you are taking these enzymes, but what is going to activate it if you don't have the right pH, alkaline in your small intestine, because the pancreas, for example, is too exhausted to release these bicarbonates? Then what's going to activate them? So, in other words, if you're going to take enzymes, I would also recommend you take some baking soda with that to help them get activated. So from one aspect, baking soda might help your digestion from just activating certain enzymes.
Now, on another hand, baking soda may be helpful in certain situations with like acid reflux or heartburn, if you don't take it very often and you don't take it for a long period of time. Because if you're going to take it for, you know, weeks and months, you're going to actually create other problems. Because usually the underlying cause of heartburn or acid reflux is a lack of acid, not too much acid. And so this is why some of the side effects of chronic consumption of baking soda can create bloating, gas, and even something called acid rebound, where your body now is going to make more acid to compensate. So if you wanted to take it short term, here and there, for some acid reflux, that's fine, as long as you're also focused on correcting that cause of it, which is usually a lack of acid. This is why I think a much better remedy would be betaine hydrochloride and some apple cider vinegar. But let's say, for example, you have an ulcer, or let's say, for example, you have gastritis, okay, your stomach lining is just raw. If you take betaine hydrochloride or apple cider vinegar, you're just going to irritate the heck out of it. But you can very easily take baking soda to give you some relief. So I just wanted to kind of give you some specifics on like when you may want to take it, when you might not take it.
Now, of course, there's going to be people commenting on the channel that, um, say, well, you know, my grandfather took this his whole life and he's, you know, 120 years old, so it's fine. So I'm not here to tell you not to take it because I, I'm totally into natural remedies. But in flip side, you always want to ask yourself, why do you need to take any remedy at all? And do you know the cause? I think you should find natural remedies to kind of handle the symptoms, but also at the same time, really understand the mechanism so you can really eventually get rid of the cause, which if you have heartburn, really relates to kind of what you're eating.
All right, another interesting benefit has to do with increasing athletic performance. Yeah, having a little more endurance. Because when you exercise, especially intense exercise, you will generate lactic acid. Okay, so now we're going to change the pH of certain tissues in your body. And so this lactic acid tends to inhibit oxygen. And then what's going to happen is you're going to hit the wall when you exercise. So you'll have a limited endurance. But there's been a few interesting studies that shows that if you consume baking soda 90 minutes before this exercise intensity routine, it can improve your performance because it's going to neutralize this acidity and then allow more oxygen to occur. But not only that, I think another thing that it does is that baking soda turns into, as a byproduct, water and CO2, carbon dioxide, which automatically allows oxygen to go into the body. If that's new information for you, you should watch my video on that topic. I'll put it down below, but it's fascinating.
Now, the CO2 connection relates to this next benefit, which, you know, I found I had to dig deep, but I found some interesting research on the relationship between picking sodium bicarbonate and cancer. And currently, in this one study that I'll put down below, there was a significant improvement in decreasing the incidence of metastasis. Now, this was in mice studies, but still, this is interesting data. Now, why would it do that? Well, if you take a look at a normal cell versus a cancer cell in relationship to pH, the outside of a cancer cell is way more acidic than a normal cell. Let the inside of that cell, cancer cell, is alkaline, more alkaline than a normal cell. So that's interesting. So when people say that, oh yeah, cancer is acidic, are you talking about the inside of the cell or the outside of the cell? And there's a more concentrated amount of lactic acid, okay, and lactate, and that can actually trigger the growth of tumors. So if you were to reduce that kind of neutralize that pH, potentially you can actually prevent the growth of the tumor. Now, realize that all this is kind of down chain, in other words, it's like the kind of consequences of this chain reaction that occurs originally from some type of damage to the mitochondria, and then the oxygen machine can't work, and then the body uses a different mechanism to get its fuel, and then the body switches from normal cell to now a cancer cell, which is kind of like a backup system to get fuel. And in the process, there's a lot of lactic acid generated. And so when you're taking baking soda, you're not actually doing anything for this initial cause of cancer in the mitochondria. But but what I like about it is that baking soda can increase CO2. And CO2 is all about allowing oxygen to kind of go deeper into the tissues. We're taught that CO2 is just a waste product, but it's essential for oxygen. So if you're just like hyper-focused on this oxygen thing and you're ignoring CO2, it's not going to work. So even if you do searches on like CO2, carbon dioxide, in relationship to cancer, there's some therapies out there that shows that it can inhibit the tumor growth just by doing CO2, which is interesting, which is a byproduct of baking soda.
Another, uh, interesting thing about baking soda is that people use it for their skin to help decrease rashes or some type of skin allergy. Also, baking soda is good if you have a sinus problem, right? If you could just put it in a Neti Pot, maybe a fourth of a teaspoon with a little pinch of sea salt, and you dissolve that, and you get the vapors into your sinuses, that can greatly help your sinus irritation. So that would be more like a sinus irrigation.
And one last interesting benefit about using baking soda, and of course, when I recommend it, I'm always talking about this taking it sporadically, not like all the time, every single day, to help reduce the risk of gout attacks. Because you can inhibit the formation of that uric acid crystal if you just get your pH a little higher. And so you would want to monitor the pH in your urine and take it until the pH of your urine is like maybe a seven versus like a five. So anyway, I just wanted to give you more of an a different viewpoint of baking soda, um, on maybe some potential benefits for you. But if you haven't seen this video on baking soda, which I talk about the very unusual and surprising benefits, you should check it out. I'll put it up right here.