Wellness tips: This old pantry staple may help improve fitness, but it has risks

You may think the baking soda lurking in the back of your cupboard is only useful for absorbing gross refrigerator smells, cleaning produce or making baked goods.

But some people would probably recommend you think again — because they’re adding it to their water and sharing online that they’ve found the ingredient improves their exercise performance, acid reflux, energy levels and more. But experts said whether the practice is helpful for various conditions is a nuanced matter due to limited and mixed research, risks and personal health.

“Baking soda is a very cool natural ingredient that can do a lot,” said Frances Largeman-Roth, a registered dietitian nutritionist and author of “Everyday Snack Tray.”

“It can (also) neutralize odors and help you remove stains from your clothes,” Largeman-Roth said via email.

However, just because baking soda is produced from natural ingredients doesn’t mean it’s safe to ingest without regulation, she added. The need for caution is due to the chemistry of baking soda and that of the body, and how the sensitive interplay between the two is the very thing that could help or harm.

Baking soda, formally known as sodium bicarbonate, is an alkaline substance composed of sodium, hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, said Grace Derocha, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The primary way baking soda could be helpful for issues such as acid reflux is by neutralizing acid.

On the pH scale of acidity and alkalinity, anything with a pH of less than 7 is acidic, while 7 to 8 is neutral and anything from 8 to 14 is alkaline, or basic. The normal pH range for the human body, measured by blood, is 7.35 to 7.45, Derocha said, but specific body parts and substances have their own pH — such as the stomach’s highly acidic pH of 1.

Consuming too much baking soda, which has an alkaline pH of about 8.3, is when things can get thrown out of whack. Based on this science, here’s what the research and experts say about the health effects, important risk factors and other things you need to know.

What the research does (and doesn’t) show

When it comes to what consuming baking soda could improve, exercise endurance is one of the purposes most backed up by research, dating to the 1980s — though some studies are small or have mixed conclusions.

During exercise — particularly the intense, anaerobic kind such as sprinting or jumping rope — muscle metabolism produces hydrogen ions, said exercise physiologist Dr. Tamara Hew-Butler, an associate professor of exercise and sport science at Wayne State University in Detroit, via email. Then the breakdown of muscle glycogen that produces energy also results in the making of lactate plus a hydrogen ion.

The ion buildup “increases the acidity … in the blood/muscle environment that limits exercise performance (i.e., the ‘burn’ of exercise),” Hew-Butler added. “Thus, the (benefit) of ingesting baking soda before exercise is to reduce the acidity in and around the working muscles, which can improve performance in short-duration, high-intensity exercise.”

Some studies have shown that ingesting baking soda an hour or two before exercise can improve performance during up to 12 minutes of high-intensity activities such as cycling, running, rowing, boxing and karate, according to a large 2021 research review by the International Society of Sports Nutrition. But it’s possible for the effects on pH to last up to three hours, Hew-Butler said.

Participants who consumed baking soda in a study involving strength training were able to do more reps with less muscle fatigue than the placebo group.

Baking soda may lower stomach acid and relieve acid reflux or indigestion, too — which is unsurprising since the ingredient is a component of antacids, a common treatment for the conditions, Derocha said.

There has also been some evidence to suggest baking soda may also slow the progression of kidney disease.

In people with chronic kidney disease, the organs don’t function well enough to get rid of enough acid each day, resulting in more acidic blood, said Dr. Paul O’Connor, professor of physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University in Georgia.

“Clinically, what we’ve been doing is giving bicarbonate supplementation to these people to basically offset the acid load and help give the kidneys less acid to get rid of,” O’Connor said. “Being too (acidic) can cause bone and mineral loss and muscle waste and a few other problematic things.”

A randomized control trial of 153 people who had hypertension and a high risk of worsening chronic kidney disease is the latest evidence backing this up. Consuming two daily doses of baking soda — in the form of four or five 650-milligram tablets — was linked with slower kidney disease progression over five years, according to the study published August 5 in The American Journal of Medicine. That result was in comparison to the group that had received only standard medical care. Baking soda supplementation wasn’t associated, however, with improvements in blood pressure or cardiovascular disease risk.

These findings affirmed 15 or so other studies on the topic. A few have also suggested benefits for kidney stones. But a couple of recent multisite clinical trials suggested otherwise, O’Connor said, and the jury’s still out on why.

A 2018 study in both rats and humans found baking soda reduced inflammation, Largeman-Roth said, which is a risk factor for various health problems including heart disease, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and more. “However, the study only lasted for (two) weeks, so we can’t assume that this treatment is safe over time,” she said.

But the findings are why the study authors suggested inflammatory illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis could potentially benefit from baking soda, Largeman-Roth said.

Managing risk

No matter your situation, always consult your doctor to ensure a new health practice is right for you since each person’s body is different, Derocha said. Lower stomach acid can make some medications take longer to work or affect how they work, Largeman-Roth said.

There are people for whom that instruction is critical and baking soda supplementation is absolutely not recommended, including children; those who have cardiovascular issues, acidosis or alkalosis; and people who are pregnant, experts said.

This caution is partly due to the high sodium content, as 1 teaspoon contains more than 1,200 milligrams. The American Heart Association’s ideal daily sodium limit is 1,500 milligrams per day for most adults, especially those with high blood pressure, and no more than 2,300 milligrams daily.

There is no universal dosage recommendation, experts said. But for indigestion, you could try ¼ teaspoon mixed with a glass of water, Largeman-Roth said. Some people use a teaspoon, Derocha said, but working up to that may be better since some experience diarrhea, gas, nausea or vomiting from taking too much. Drinking it after eating is best since you need your stomach acid to digest food first, she added.

Fitness studies have typically dosed within the range of 0.2 to 0.5 grams of baking soda per kilogram of body weight — meaning a person weighing about 59 kilograms, or 130 pounds, might use around a tablespoon of baking soda at a minimum. But in real life, many athletes can’t stomach this much, Largeman-Roth said.

For kidney disease, tablet dosage is titrated by doctors based on a patient’s blood work, O’Connor said.

Overdoing it or drinking baking soda water long term “can have disastrous results,” Largeman-Roth said, adding that people have wound up in an emergency room because they sent their bodies into metabolic alkalosis, which means the body’s pH is more than 7.45. Alkalosis can harm the heart, decrease blood flow to the brain, cause mental confusion and reduce the flow of oxygen to bodily tissues, she added.

Your stomach may also begin excessively secreting acid to preempt the baking soda it assumes you’ll ingest, O’Connor said.

“That’s why people with acid reflux normally get different drugs — proton pump inhibitors and things like that,” he added. “Having an acid stomach is (also) good to stop bugs from getting through to the digestive system.”

Some people limit consumption to the morning since the drink interferes with their sleep, which is likely due to the sodium making the heart work harder to move blood throughout the body, temporarily raising blood pressure, Derocha said. This effect explains why some people on blood pressure medications take those drugs at night, leading to less work for their heart and therefore better sleep.

Baking soda supplementation isn’t the only way to alleviate acid-induced health problems. In that recent study on baking soda, kidney disease and hypertension, adding more produce to one’s diet was most helpful — supporting the fact that for overall health, the basics are always most important, experts said.