An astounding study shows that 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda lowers inflammation within hours.
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Study was published in 2018 in The Journal of Immunology.
Some experiment were done in rodents including baking soda in the water.
Some groups had their vagus nerves cut.
Other animals had a surgery to disturb the spleen.
Both surgeries were done to see if these tissues mediated the effect of baking soda.
Then, the human studies were done comparing drinking 2g of baking soda dissolved in water vs 2g of salt.
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Animals consuming baking soda in the water showed decreased inflammation in several areas.
In both the kidneys and in the spleen, they had decreased inflammatory M1 macrophages, one of the primary immune cells.
Baking soda increased M2 macrophages, signifying that the macrophages turned into a more anti-inflammatory phenotype.
They also had:
↑IL-10 in the kidney (anti-inflammatory cytokine)
↑FOXP3 cells in blood + kidney (Treg cells, anti-inflammatory immune cells)
↓CD4 T Cells (inflammatory)
↓CD44 T cells (inflammatory)
↓TNFα macrophages (primary inflammatory mediator)
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The more baking soda consumed, the lower the inflammation.
Animals consuming up to 0.1M baking soda had substantially lower ratios of M1/M2 macrophages, reflecting an anti-inflammatory skewing of these immune cells.
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In humans, taking 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda rapidly reduced inflammation.
Within an hour, it shifted immune profile toward less inflammation by:
Since baking soda's effects were dependent on the spleen, the vagus nerve and the tissue surrounding the spleen, it's clear that it is acting through this system.
The vagus nerve connects to the spleen, which houses many immune cells where they can mature into their distinct types. They found here that the connective tissue surrounding the spleen is vital for this interaction.
Activating the vagus nerve tends to calm these immune cells into anti-inflammatory varieties.
This is incredibly relevant for a host of conditions.
The researchers mentioned diseases mediated by inflammatory macrophages & excessive TNF-α:
N-acetylcysteine (NAC) was shown to reverse brain damage from aluminum in a critical study.
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Animals were put into 6 groups - either getting aluminum or NAC or both.
The aluminum was administered as aluminum chloride, and it was done so orally.
This is important because roughly only 0.5% of oral aluminum chloride is absorbed, so the real effective doses the animals received were far less than than the 100 mg / kg.
This is still a high dose, but aluminum is known to accumulate in tissues.
Animals had severely impaired memory performance with the aluminum, but this was improved with NAC.
The morris water test trains rats to find a hidden platform in pool.
The latencies (times) is how long it takes to find it on a given day.
Less time = better memory.
As you can see, the high dose NAC almost completely reversed the memory impairment from aluminum.