Why Drinking Baking Soda Water Could Be Beneficial If You Have This Medical Condition

Baking soda is a deceptively simple product that has a long list of uses outside the culinary world. In fact, baking soda has been heralded as a way to absorb and neutralize unwelcome bathroom odors, ward off plant-eating garden insects, and make your white clothes brighter. And baking soda (when combined with water) might also be beneficial as a treatment if you're diagnosed with a medical condition called metabolic acidosis.

What is metabolic acidosis? According to reporting from the Cleveland Clinic, it's a condition that occurs when the acids in the body begin to mount. Metabolic acidosis is a particularly common symptom among people who have been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease or another kidney issue.

What happens when you have metabolic acidosis? Essentially, your body is unable to keep your pH levels where they belong. Under normal conditions, the human system automatically neutralizes acids, thereby stabilizing the body at a healthy, neutral pH balance of approximately 7.35 to 7.45. However, individuals with metabolic acidosis experience a buildup of acid. As a result, the American Kidney Fund notes that they may exhibit adverse and even dangerous side effects like stomach upset, dizziness, fast breathing, or confusion.

Where does baking soda (or baking soda water) fit into this picture? As Dr. Amy Lee, head of nutrition for Nuficic, explains, consuming baking soda (or at least its core ingredient) could be a useful and practical way to restore the body's pH levels and minimize the impact of metabolic acidosis.

Baking soda consists of sodium bicarbonate, which WebMD notes is a salty, dry substance. The National Library of Medicine database identifies one of baking soda's uses as a pH regulator, which is where its metabolic acidosis treatment efficacy stems from.

How exactly is baking soda water (or a variation of it) applied? Dr. Amy Lee has a ready answer: "In the medical setting, we oftentimes use sodium bicarbonate to treat metabolic acidosis," says Dr. Lee, adding that using it "can help with bringing the pH closer to 7.2 – 7.4, which is the level of blood." According to Dr. Lee, there are findings from some clinical trials that lend credence to this health benefit.

For example, a 2019 study in the Journal of Nephrology followed hundreds of subjects with chronic kidney disease for three years. Those who were given daily treatments of a sodium bicarbonate solution were able to safely improve their kidney functions.

Another review, published in 2021 in Critical Care, looked at the use of sodium bicarbonate in intensive care units to treat patients with acute metabolic acidosis. The review's authors concluded that, although clinical studies on the outcomes of sodium bicarbonate treatments in those situations were lacking, sodium bicarbonate could be useful for patients presenting with acute kidney injury.

This doesn't mean that you should simply drink baking soda water if you learn you have metabolic acidosis. In a 2019 article from the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, the authors made it clear that the use of sodium bicarbonate for those with kidney-related conditions like metabolic acidosis deserves more attention. But they were emphatic about not ruling out any possibilities for sodium bicarbonate as a reliable way to bring about pH balance in those with kidney diseases.

In their summary, they noted that "studies examining the use of sodium bicarbonate in the treatment of acute metabolic acidemia have heretofore revealed little improvement in clinical outcomes... [h]owever, all involved small numbers of patients and only [two] were randomized and controlled [...] leaving the possibility that any beneficial effects of bicarbonate might have escaped detection." Consequently, you should always get advice from a medical provider before attempting to use baking soda and water to manage a verified case of metabolic acidosis.