Baking Soda for Heartburn – How Taking Baking Soda Can Help with Heartburn

Baking Soda for Heartburn – How Taking Baking Soda Can Help with Heartburn

Using baking soda for heartburn often works, which sometimes surprises people. Heartburn is such a difficult problem for so many people to live with on a regular basis that the idea that it could be treated with something as simple as baking soda seems almost surprising. People tend to keep this staple ingredient on hand for some of their recipes. They can practically forget they have it on hand half the time. Still, consuming a relatively small amount of it can make all the difference for people who regularly struggle with heartburn symptoms.

When it comes to baking soda for heartburn, the mechanism is simple. Baking soda contains sodium bicarbonate. On the pH scale, sodium bicarbonate is highly alkaline. The fact that it contains such an ingredient at all makes it somewhat unconventional among household products that people can take. Most foods are slightly acidic or very acidic. At best, the things people take safely are neutral on the pH scale. In fact, many bases are actively dangerous to humans. However, sodium bicarbonate is a very weak base on the pH scale, making it safe in small doses.

Baking soda for heartburn has a certain clear logic. Heartburn is caused by misplaced strong stomach acid. A weak base such as sodium bicarbonate can neutralize this stomach acid, making the pain go away immediately. To effectively neutralize stomach acid, you usually only need a very small amount of an already very weak base. A teaspoon dissolved in a full glass of water can usually neutralize the stomach acid that causes heartburn. People who suffer from chronic heartburn may need to take this treatment relatively regularly to relieve heartburn.

Using baking soda to relieve heartburn also has the advantage of being inexpensive. A container of this simple household item can last people for months, even if they use it regularly for heartburn relief. Antacids, on the other hand, need to be replaced regularly. Some people may be concerned about using something like baking soda instead of a more natural herbal remedy.

You should know that sodium bicarbonate is already produced biologically by the pancreas to combat stomach acid. Unlike many antacids, baking soda contains few ingredients other than sodium bicarbonate, so people who take it aren't ingesting a whole host of other chemicals. Using baking soda to relieve heartburn is, in large part, a simple matter of replicating the internal processes that are already biologically present.

Inspired by Eldridge Williams II