01/29/2026
2g of baking soda lowers inflammation and may help with some inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
It works by shifting the balance of macrophages (immune cells) from M1 (inflammatory) to M2 (anti-inflammatory).
Higher M1:M2 drives inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis and IBD.
"You are not really turning anything off or on, you are just pushing it toward one side by giving an anti-inflammatory stimulus," he says, in this case, away from harmful inflammation. "It's potentially a really safe way to treat inflammatory disease."
In the human part of the research, they used 2 g of baking soda dissolved in 250 ml of bottled water. This resulted in significant decreases in inflammatory M1, increases in anti-inflammatory M2, and decreases in the inflammatory TNF-α.
“We tested the hypothesis that oral NaHCO3 intake stimulates splenic anti-inflammatory pathways. Following oral NaHCO3 loading, macrophage polarization was shifted from predominantly M1 (inflammatory) to M2 (regulatory) phenotypes, and FOXP3+CD4+ T-lymphocytes increased in the spleen, blood, and kidneys of rats. Similar anti-inflammatory changes in macrophage polarization were observed in the blood of human subjects following NaHCO3 ingestion... Our data indicate that oral NaHCO3 activates a splenic anti-inflammatory pathway and provides evidence that the signals that mediate this response are transmitted to the spleen via a novel neuronal-like function of mesothelial cells.”
Ref:
Drinking baking soda could be an inexpensive, safe way to combat autoimmune disease
Oral NaHCO3 Activates a Splenic Anti-Inflammatory Pathway: Evidence That Cholinergic Signals Are Transmitted via Mesothelial Cells