Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is a white, powdery substance that is primarily used in baking. If you're a middle school student, you might recognize baking soda as the substance you mix with vinegar to make an erupting science fair volcano. But what if we told you that, aside from these two more well-known applications, baking soda can also be used to meet a variety of other needs? Baking soda, it turns out, has a number of potential uses aside from baking and creating semi-realistic volcanic eruptions.
What are Health Benefits of Baking Soda
Here are a few examples of how you can use baking soda in your daily life to improve your health.
1 Use Baking Soda To Soothe Your Skin
Nothing beats a peaceful hike through nature in the summertime, until you get home and realize you're covered in itchy mosquito bites. To alleviate itching caused by bug bites, bee stings, and other sources, soak the affected area in water mixed with a few cups of baking soda.
Baking soda may also help to relieve the itching and discomfort caused by sunburns, especially when combined with other ingredients like corn starch and oatmeal. A mixture of water and baking soda may also help to relieve the pain and discomfort caused by callouses. Soaking a callous in water mixed with baking soda, according to some studies, softens the hard, scaly area of the callous, making it less painful and allowing it to heal faster.
2 For Oral Hygiene, Use Baking Soda
Do you dislike the stinging sensation that mouthwash can sometimes cause? Instead, why not rinse your mouth with baking soda? Simply combine a teaspoon of baking soda with warm water and swish as usual. Baking soda, due to its granular nature, is excellent at reaching the nooks and crannies in and between your teeth that you may have missed while brushing or flossing.
Baking soda also has antibacterial and antimicrobial properties that can help eliminate bacteria in your mouth that cause bad breath, and its mildly abrasive properties can help remove plaque and whiten your teeth. Furthermore, rinsing your mouth with baking soda may help relieve pain from canker sores, according to a few studies.
3 Use Baking Soda To Exercise Better
Physical activity is one of the most important ways to keep your body's various systems running as efficiently as possible when it comes to staying healthy. People who are committed to improving their workout results frequently go above and beyond by purchasing supplements, protein powders, and other tools to help them achieve their goals faster; however, what if we told you that a useful workout supplement may already be in your kitchen? Baking soda, as you may have guessed, may also help you perform better when exercising, to the point where many athletes and gym goers use it as a natural supplement.
Sodium bicarbonate has been shown in studies to be highly effective at extending peak performance during exercise, particularly in high-intensity anaerobic activities. This is due to the high pH level of baking soda, which cancels out your body's lactic acid, which is produced by your muscles during exercise and causes you to feel tired and sore. By maintaining your body's pH, you can exercise for longer periods of time without becoming fatigued, allowing you to make the most of your valuable gym time.
The advantages don't end there; after your workout, pat down your armpits with some extra baking soda to serve as a natural deodorant.
4 Use Baking Soda To Treat Heartburn
Heartburn, also known as acid reflux, is a painful condition in which a burning sensation rises from your stomach and possibly as far as your throat. As the name implies, acid reflux is caused by acid refluxing from your stomach into your esophagus. It can be triggered by a number of factors, including stress, overeating, and eating certain foods that your body may not agree with. While this can be a painful and uncomfortable sensation for people who suffer from acid reflux on a regular basis, the good news is that you may be able to stop the symptoms of heartburn with something as simple as baking soda.
When you feel a burning sensation in your chest or throat, try dissolving a spoonful of baking powder in a glass of cold water and slowly drinking it. The baking soda will act as a neutralizing agent against your stomach acid, relieving you of the burning sensation and symptoms of heartburn.
5 Use Baking Soda To Help Your Kidneys
Baking soda, according to some research, may be able to improve your health by slowing the progression of chronic kidney disease, a debilitating illness that, as the name implies, targets your kidneys and causes them to gradually lose function over time. Because your kidneys filter your blood and keep it free of waste, it is critical to keep your kidneys healthy in order to keep the rest of your body running smoothly.
Adults with chronic kidney disease were found to have a 36% lower risk of kidney failure when taking a baking soda-based supplement on a regular basis, according to one study.
6 Use Baking Soda To Relieve Arthritis Pain
According to recent research, baking soda may be effective in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid Arthritis, or RA, is an autoimmune disease that attacks your body's joints, causing joint pain, swelling, stiffness, and, in severe cases, the loss of a joint's ability to function entirely. Drinking water mixed with baking soda may help treat rheumatoid arthritis by reducing joint inflammation by promoting your body's anti-inflammatory response while reducing the effects of its autoimmune response, according to a study published in the Journal of Immunology in April 2018.
7 Use Baking Soda To Fight Back Against Cancer
Baking soda may be able to help people who are currently undergoing treatment for certain types of cancer, in addition to all of the other health benefits listed above. According to research, baking soda may be able to benefit a cancer patient's chemotherapy treatment by making the environment for tumors less acidic, allowing chemotherapy medicines to more effectively slow the growth of cancer cells.
However, this research is still in its early stages, and testing was mostly done on animals and cells; therefore, more human-based research will be needed before the true effectiveness of this hypothesis can be confirmed.
That's all there is to it. While you may only know baking soda as the stuff in the back of your cupboard, it turns out that this innocuous white powder has a variety of uses and may even be able to improve your health in a variety of ways. From painful arthritis to body odor, it appears that sodium bicarbonate can do no wrong.
Did you find it useful? Do you have any other baking soda applications you'd like to share with the world? We always appreciate reader feedback, so make your voice heard by scrolling down and leaving a comment below to help us keep the conversation going.