Baking soda could reduce rheumatoid arthritis pain

Baking soda or sodium bicarbonate can battle rheumatoid arthritis by reducing inflammation

The humble baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) could be the best bet for reducing the pain of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Research published in the Journal of Immunology shows that baking soda that is available over the counter – in fact present in most kitchens – can egg the spleen on to battle inflammation. Inflammation is what causes the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. The research has been done by scientists from Medical College of Georgia.

“It’s most likely a hamburger not a bacterial infection,” is basically the message, says Dr. Paul O’Connor, renal physiologist in the MCG Department of Physiology at Augusta University

They have shown that when rats or healthy people drink a solution of baking soda, it becomes a trigger for the stomach to make more acid to digest the next meal. It also tells the little-studied mesothelial cells sitting on the spleen that there’s no need to mount a protective immune response.

“It’s most likely a hamburger not a bacterial infection,” is basically the message, says Dr. Paul O’Connor, renal physiologist in the MCG Department of Physiology at Augusta University and the study’s corresponding author.

Mesothelial cells line body cavities, like the one that contains our digestive tract, and they also cover the exterior of our organs. This keeps them from rubbing together. About a decade ago, it was found that these cells also provide another level of protection. They have little fingers, called microvilli, that sense the environment, and warn the organs. This goads the latter into an immune response.

Drinking baking soda, the MCG scientists think, tells the spleen to go easy on the immune response. “Certainly drinking bicarbonate affects the spleen and we think it’s through the mesothelial cells,” O’Connor says.

The conversation, which occurs with the help of the chemical messenger acetylcholine, appears to promote a landscape that shifts against inflammation, they report.

After drinking a solution of baking soda and water for two weeks the population of immune cells reduced in the spleen, blood and kidneys.

“The shift from inflammatory to an anti-inflammatory profile is happening everywhere,” O’Connor says. “We saw it in the kidneys, we saw it in the spleen, now we see it in the peripheral blood.”