Drinking this BAKING ingredient could be cheap and easy 'cure' for arthritis
The cheap ingredient, which also acts like an antacid, has been found to have anti-inflammatory properties.
And experts hope it could one day be used to treat inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
When a healthy person drinks a solution of baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, the stomach produces more acid to digest the next meal, stopping the spleen producing an immune response.
It is this immune response that usually leads to inflammation in the body.
Experts from the Medical College of Georgia found that after drinking baking soda the spleen, as well as the blood in the kidneys, contained less inflammatory cells and more anti-inflammatory ones.
It also helps prevent kidney disease by making the organ less acidic – the more acidic the kidney becomes the greater your risk of kidney disease.
A person with kidney disease is also more at risk of heart disease and osteoporosis.
Dr Paul O'Connor, renal physiologist at the college, said: "The shift from inflammatory to an anti-inflammatory profile is happening everywhere.
"We saw it in the kidneys, we saw it in the spleen, now we see it in the peripheral blood."
Drinking baking soda also encouraged the body to produce more regulatory T cells, which prevents the immune system from attacking it's own tissues.
The anti-inflammatory response from drinking baking soda lasted around four hours.
But when the sleep was removed, or moved slightly, the protective anti-inflammatory coating broke and an immune response was triggered.
"You are not really turning anything off or on, you are just pushing it toward one side by giving an anti-inflammatory stimulus," Dr O'Connor said.
"In this case, away from harmful inflammation. "It's potentially a really safe way to treat inflammatory disease."
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