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Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)

zzz0r

Senior Member
Messages
181
Hi everyone,

I want to ask your experience with sodium bicarbonate ( baking soda) as an antifungal agent. There are contradicted reports saying that is an effecting agent against candida but it may alkalize the gut too much...

Any take on this one ?
 
Messages
1,478
Hi everyone,

I want to ask your experience with sodium bicarbonate ( baking soda) as an antifungal agent. There are contradicted reports saying that is an effecting agent against candida but it may alkalize the gut too much...

Any take on this one ?
The traditional way to control growth of yeasts and moulds is acid environment. In food preservation (the area I'm most familiar with) you control ph to below ph 3.5 to stop y&m growth on high sugar foods (e.g jam).
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
The traditional way to control growth of yeasts and moulds is acid environment. In food preservation (the area I'm most familiar with) you control ph to below ph 3.5 to stop y&m growth on high sugar foods (e.g jam).
I find that very strange.

Quite a lot of people with M.E. take sodium bicarbonate. I do - have taken it for years. There is info here:

https://examine.com/supplements/Sodium Bicarbonate/

I don't know much about fungus though.
 
Messages
1,478
I find that very strange.

Quite a lot of people with M.E. take sodium bicarbonate. I do - have taken it for years. There is info here:

https://examine.com/supplements/Sodium Bicarbonate/

I don't know much about fungus though.
microbes tend to be difficult to understand in vivo. When you layer all the other potential symbiotic relationships who knows really. There is an interesting read here which shows that Candida in particular responds differently to different external pH's.

http://mbio.asm.org/content/2/3/e00055-11.full

The general rule of thumb in the food industry (I.e. not in the body) is that lower pH is best. Candida is not really an issue in the food industry though...more sachoromyces, penicillium, aspergillus etc.

It might also be possible that taking an alkali might stimulate the stomach to release more acid? The body will try and maintain pH in the various parts of the alimentary canal to make the enzymes work etc.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3949122

I have always assumed that lower stomach acidity can have knock on effects further down and cause changes in intestinal flora.

The bicarb thing sounds counterproductive to me on this basis. Just my logic at the moment.
 

Sancar

Sick of being sick ~
Messages
98
Location
So Cal USA
I find that very strange.

Quite a lot of people with M.E. take sodium bicarbonate. I do - have taken it for years. There is info here:

https://examine.com/supplements/Sodium Bicarbonate/

I don't know much about fungus though.

@MeSci~ I'm glad to hear 'sodium bicarbonate' works for you. I've been wanting to try it for "gut issues" as well as "lactic acid" that 'burns' my muscles.

Do you take 'plain baking soda'? If so how much and when? Before at after meals? The article you revered to above mentioned 'Potasium bicarbonate" might be preferable?

Thank you! :)
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
@MeSci~ I'm glad to hear 'sodium bicarbonate' works for you. I've been wanting to try it for "gut issues" as well as "lactic acid" that 'burns' my muscles.

Do you take 'plain baking soda'? If so how much and when? Before at after meals? The article you revered to above mentioned 'Potasium bicarbonate" might be preferable?

Thank you! :)
I'm not sure if my advice is good at the moment, as I have been going through a bad patch for over a year since suffering some kind of brain attack (went to hospital, but none the wiser - maybe a stroke?).

I take about 2 teaspoons sodium bicarbonate in water each day, mostly after meals, but it's rather irregular nowadays. I am a vegan, so that probably needs to be taken into account.

I buy my sod bic in the chemists usually, but it's probably different in the US.

I don't think I've tried potassium bicarbonate; I tried potassium gluconate and it seemed to have adverse effects, and I stopped taking it. But I had adverse effects from a lot of things and ditched them.

You might find more info if you search for sodium bicarbonate or baking soda here.
 

PennyIA

Senior Member
Messages
728
Location
Iowa
Did a bit of a search and stumbled onto this thread.

At this point, I am at a complete loss as to my diagnosis, as it *seems* like I may have Dercum's Disease. There is an enormous overlap of symptoms between Dercum's Disease and ME (including PEM). But I kind of wonder if Dercum's is one thing and it is reflected in the key symptom of lumps... and it has a high comordity rate with ME/CFS (not everyone getting these lumps have the ME/CFS symptoms, just a lot of the patients do.

But basically, in reviewing the ever so tiny amount of info available on Dercum's they believe that the lymphatic system 'leaks' and sends heavy amounts of 'bad' material to the cells, and that the body's ability to clean out the toxins and other things is poor... resulting in cells trying to 'subdue' the damage - they deposit fatty material in the area to try to feed the proteins that are supposed to be cleaning up the spill - only they aren't there or aren't working leaving the lumps behind.

TIe that to the theory that a lot of the PEM from ME/CFS is related to anaerobic energy production which produces too much lactic acid - hence the 'burn' we often feel before/during crashes.

When my lumps form, I feel a strong burning sensation in the muscle area before the lumps start to form. Eventually, the burn will subside slightly, but then there are painful lumps in that area left behind.

I tried to describe the 'burn' sensation - one way to explain it is to talk about the athlete pushing back his abilities, and how they'll experience the lactic acid burn in the muscles that will repair far more quickly than the patients with ME/CFS or Dercum's.

Another way, is it literally feels like someone injected me just under the skin with an acidic compound.

So, if I do have both, then it would seem that I would be having bigger issues than normal with lactic acid 'leaking' out of the system and poor clean up of the acidic substance. I started taking 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda in 4 oz of water (threw in some flavoring and salt since I need both). And within 30 minutes of taking the baking soda I've noticed a dramatic decrease in the 'burn'.

Still getting lumps, still getting pain... but the 'burn' drops right away. AND that's something I've repeated daily now for almost a week. It's definitely not fixing the root issue for me, but it seems to be able to help decrease the pain I'm experiencing. Managing pain isn't easy for me, so I'll take the little lift I can.

I thought I'd check to see if anyone else was experiencing the same thing or not.
 
Messages
724
Location
Yorkshire, England
You might be interested to know that baking soda is used as an organic fungicide in gardening.

It is used to combat powdery mildew that grows on the leaves of plants.

I believe it is used to protect plants that are susceptible, instead of being used once the fungus has established.

Powdery mildews prefer a neutral ph, and the baking soda raises the ph to about 8, thus making it less likely to establish.

Being terrible at biology and chemistry, I'm not sure how useful this info is !

The typical recipe is about 1 tablespoon of Baking Soda, about 1/2 teaspoon of oil or soap (to help the spray stick), and a gallon of water, applied once a week.