ApoE4.Info

They have shown that when rats or healthy people drink a solution of baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, it becomes a trigger for the stomach to make more acid to digest the next meal and for little-studied mesothelial cells sitting on the spleen to tell the fist-sized organ that there's no need to mount a protective immune response ...

The conversation, which occurs with the help of the chemical messenger acetylcholine, appears to promote a landscape that shifts against inflammation, they report ...

"We think the cholinergic (acetylcholine) signals that we know mediate this anti-inflammatory response aren't coming directly from the vagal nerve innervating the spleen, but from the mesothelial cells that form these connections to the spleen," O'Connor says.

In fact, when they cut the vagal nerve, a big cranial nerve that starts in the brain and reaches into the heart, lungs and gut to help control things like a constant heart rate and food digestion, it did not impact the mesothelial cells' neuron-like behavior. ...

"We think this helps explain the cholinergic (acetylcholine) anti-inflammatory response that people have been studying for a long time," O'Connor says.

SusanJ wrote:I think I read this review when it came out last year. The whole acid in the stomach thing kicks off a lot of different digestive functions including bile release, which can help resolve SIBO problems. Studies show RA can be linked to GI problems, so it's another piece of the puzzle of how to tweak digestion.

Veero wrote:Any idea whether calcium carbonate ( such as In Tums) would have a similar effect?

Veero wrote:Any idea whether calcium carbonate ( such as In Tums) would have a similar effect?

Veero wrote:The generic equivalent of Tums I am using doesn’t list aluminum in the ingredients but is it a contaminant?

To determine whether oral NaHCO3 had a similar anti-inflammatory action in humans as we found in rats, we evaluated blood samples at baseline and 1, 2, and 3 h following ingestion of a single dose (2 g) of NaHCO3 (n = 11) or equimolar NaCl (n = 6), each dissolved in 250 ml of bottled water. Pre- and posttreatment values of serum electrolytes are presented in Table III. There was a significant group by time interaction for changes in serum potassium (p = 0.029, η2P = 0.279). Specifically, serum potassium decreased with NaHCO3 treatment (p = 0.008), but there was no change with NaCl treatment (p = 0.381). BMI and C-reactive protein levels were not significantly different at baseline between either group, indicating a similar baseline inflammatory state (Table IV). No other significant differences were observed between TXT groups at baseline in any variables tested (Table IV)...

Baseline flow cytometry values of all subjects, before ingesting NaHCO3 or NaCl in solution, are presented in Table IV. Prior to any treatment, the percentages of blood leukocytes that were TNF-α+ neutrophils, M1 macrophages, or M2 macrophages were all significantly higher in the NaHCO3 TXT group when compared with baseline values obtained in the NaCl TXT group (Table IV). There was a significant TREATMENT × TIME effect on both M1 macrophages (p = 0.0004) and TNF-α–positive neutrophils (p = 0.0146), with the levels of these inflammatory cells in the plasma being reduced to a significantly greater degree following ingestion of NaHCO3 when compared with NaCl (Fig. 3). The greatest decreases in blood inflammatory cells were observed at 2 and 3 h following NaHCO3 ingestion. Similar to our observations in rats, oral NaHCO3 ingestion increased the percentage of blood leukocytes identified by flow cytometry as M2 macrophages (p = 0.00165) (Fig. 3). Decreases in inflammatory TNF-α+ neutrophils and M1 macrophages in the NaHCO3 TXT group did not appear to be related to the differing baseline levels observed between TXT groups. When comparing individual responses between subjects of different groups, subjects with similar baseline levels of blood leukocytes responded differently if they received NaHCO3 compared with NaCl (Supplemental Fig. 1)...

[Interstingly] the gastric proton pump inhibitor esomeprazole also inhibited the anti-inflammatory response to NaHCO3 (Fig. 6). [Emphasis added]