I also got the shits once while trying it. If this happens, use half the amount next time about you should be okay.
The real question here, though, is did it get rid of your cold? Personally, I’ll take one massive attack of Montezuma’srevenge over a week of feeling like shit. But that’s just me.
Currently, with flu season here going full-bore, I’ve had to try the cure again. I gave it a shot with two separate doses of one tbsp each, spaced out one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Seemed to do the trick just as well as the orignal dosage did, so maybe two full tbsps aren’t needed for a 180 pound person. (Joel, did you up the dosage to three tbsps or something?) Also, there seems to be a growing trend that for whatever reason this doesn’t do anything to get rid of sore throats. For what it’s worth.
And fitone, it’s placebo Effect, not placebo Affect.
I can’t really say it did anything for my cold (post-nasal drip to be precise).
However, my father takes some baking soda and water after just about every meal because he has indigestion problems. He’s been doing this for as long as I can remember, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s had a cold or anything of the sort in 10 years, maybe more.
Would taking a megadose of vit C instead of baking soda have similar outcome even though this would lower urinary pH while baking soda would increase it? Is it just the pH alteration that kills the cold?
I only say this because previous forum discussions pertained to the effects of an acidic urine excreting more pseudoephedrine, so you could take Tylenol Cold later in the day, probably until 4 or 5pm, and then take a gram of Vit C 2 hours later to decrease pH and to eliminate the Tylenol Cold’s pseudoephedrine from your system allowing you to get to sleep by 11pm. (all times are very, very approximate)
Oh yeah, and since glutamine is so good for your immune systems, if it the increased pH route you choose to take, gln will augment that effect. However if a variant pH is what we are seeking to destroy the common cold, I guess it would be contradictory to take both Vitamin C and Gln&Baking soda.
None of the pH conjecture matters as your blood has multiple buffering systems that tend to keep it within a tightly controlled range short of some respiratory compromise or metabolic disorder. In other words, it’d take a whole lot more than a little food/drink/baking soda to change your blood pH to any discernible degree.
I’ve had thise Unbelievably TERRIBLE Flu for 4 days now, and it’s not getting better! I missed a cppl of exams, it’s so bad! I am drinking and resting alot, I don’t know what to do!
anyway, aren’t we talking about the alkylinity of the kidneys and the urine NOT the blood? Urine acidity varies day to day, even hour to hour depending on what we’ve eaten.
Tatsuo, if you’ll read up in this thread a little, you’ll see that I don’t buy this at all. Char and a few others are posters that I like and respect, but I happen to disagree with them here. Am I calling them liars? Absolutely not. You’d be surprised at how strong the placebo effect is. Most people think that well-educated, intelligent people wouldn’t “fall” for the placebo effect, but it’s been shown that they do so at numbers equivalent to any other given population. So I think they’re genuine in their belief that it “works” for them.
As for the pH issues, I do have one question for you. Why would altering the pH of urine have anything to do with an upper respiratory infection?
I agree that it’s not the pH–you’re absolutely right that blood has multiple buffering systems and stays within a highly controlled range (7.25-7.45 or so? someone posted it above). Just to play devil’s advocate, though, is there any other mechanism that you know of (besides placebo) that could make this work?
Well, as long as DocT likes me, he can say whatever he wants!
Seriously, I have no problem with his (and others’) disagreement - and I value his participation on this thread. Nor am I really sure about whether it’s a pH change that’s causing the damn near miraculous cures that I’ve seen happening here. It’s just that pH is the best thing that I could think of to explain it (actually, it’s Michelle’s explanation, not mine, but it still makes the most sense to me). If this really is the reason, then yes, taking Vitamin C along with the baking soda would probably be counterproductive. Also, I have tried taking up to 6g of Vit C at a time (alone) for colds, and have not found it to be effective (for whatever reason). So I don’t particularly recommend that as a treatment.
Why would a pH alteration work in one direction and not the other? I have no idea.
That said, I will be the first to bow to the expertise of others here who know more about the body’s physiology than I on the question of pH. I think that dogchild’s question is a great one, and I’d like to hear a better explanation if there is one.
That said, I have to state for the record that I really don’t believe that a placebo effect is at work here. The reason being that I’ve fed the baking soda to several people who had a very strong resistance to taking it (i.e., they were pretty sure that it wouldn’t work). These people have gotten better as well. In fact, far from thinking “Great, this might cure me!”, the others who’ve taken this have been extremely skeptical - as I was myself when I tried it.
Finally, I have a challenge for Doc and the rest of the “unbelievers”. Next time you have a cold, why not try taking some baking soda and see for yourselves? I’m sure that this won’t work for everyone on the planet (nothing does), but given the very good record of cures that I’ve seen, it would seem to be a good bet. How 'bout it?
If you get the raging shits from this, I hereby agree to support you with every ounce of vitriol at my command on the thead of your choice, against the antagonist(s) of your choice. It’ll be like you have your very own “Forum gun” that you can aim wherever you want.
You now have been given great power. Use it wisely, oh sage.
But you have to do a couple of things. First, don’t take more than 1.5 tbsp-fulls if you’re under 200 lbs. And second, that “tbsp” is just your regular, kitchen-sized big spoon, not a precise measurement.
Oh, and you’re honor-bound to report your results, good or bad! (But then, you knew that.)
Ok, so DocT thinks that this changing of the body’s PH is ludacris. Personally I feel the same way. But it sure seems as if this is merely not just a placebo effect for those of you for whom it has worked. Now, before I give my guess as to why this works, know that I have little to no knowledge of anatomy and biology. So here goes. Also, anyone please correct me if something I state is incorrect.
When you ingest baking soda you’re basically turning your stomach acid in to water. I would imagine this triggers some kind of message in the brain that says “Holy shit, what just happened here, I need to make some more stomach acid, STAT!” In this situation the body is going to have to produce much more stomach acid than it would after a normal meal. Would this extreme situation of creating massive amounts of stomach acid (relatively) somehow alter our body chemistry, PH, natural balance, etc? My thought is that the creation of a lot of stomach acid would take a lot of hydrogen and chlorine from the rest of the body. Could this possibly affect a virus?
Ummm… the typical cold lasts for 3 days…Congratutaltions on reducing the Ph of your stomach acid temporarily. You will find that baking soda is also a great way to get rid of heart burn. The by product of which is Carbon Dioxde, which is what you will burp up a few times before the reaction has completed.
High doses of baking soda will act as a laxative. Also, you might not notice the lactic acid burn while working out. Baking soda can act as a lactic acid buffer. I know people who take before working out to “beat the burn”.
