This $1 Powder Stops Kidney Disease, Increases Performance & Repairs Gut Lining

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]you have some of this powder sitting in your refrigerator or sitting in your pantry and less than one tablespoon of it has some really powerful evidence when it comes down to kidney disease, when it comes down to muscle performance, and when it comes down to gut health. We're talking one of the most potent things that you can consume.

[00:00:18]And it's literally a $1 kitchen staple.

[00:00:21]As a matter of fact, in a 740 patient clinical trial, kidney failure progression dropped from 17% down to 6.6% 6% with use of this. That's about a 60% relative reduction. And the intervention wasn't an expensive pharmaceutical. It was sodium bicarbonate, the stuff once again you probably have in your fridge to get rid of the odors or you have in your pantry to help with baking. Baking soda, the same box that's sitting in your kitchen.

[00:00:46]And here's why the whole kidney part matters. Even if you think your kidneys are fine, if you have even mildly impaired kidney function, and a lot of people over 35 or 40 have this without knowing it, acid is probably accumulating in your blood. Your kidneys are supposed to clear it, okay? But when they're not running at full capacity, what happens is that acid starts breaking down muscle. It starts pulling minerals from your bones and it can accelerate further kidney damage. But kidney protection really is just the starting point here because when you look at the research on this stuff, it stretches into exercise performance. It stretches into gut health. And then another cool thing even into the oral microbiome, which sounds benign and useless, but it's very powerful. The dosing and the timing matter a lot more than you'd expect for something this cheap. So, we're going to get into that, okay? Because you do want to get the dosing right. Too much of it can cause some problems, too. So, here's what we're going to break down. First, we'll get into the kidney data, okay? The actual study, what they measured, why the bicarbonate worked. Then we'll move into exercise performance because the International Society of Sports Nutrition actually released an official position stance on this. And after that, we'll cover the gut. There's actually a really fascinating connection between your intestinal lining and your kidneys that a lot of people have never heard of. And then we'll wrap up in your mouth, specifically how baking soda shifts the oral microbiome in a way that might make it more useful than your mouthwash. So, I want to start with the kidneys because this is the most important piece. Before we dive into that, another thing that might help you out in this whole context is taking care of the gut in the first place. So, I popped the link for 20% off for Seed Symbiotic. It's a prebiotic and a probiotic. Seed is unique because they actually publish clinical trials on their own product. Sometimes it works in their favor, sometimes it doesn't. But this day and age, I appreciate transparency. I appreciate when things work and when they don't, and companies being honest about it. But I also appreciate innovation and technology and how they use this capsule inside of a capsule. But most importantly, when I'm talking about my own personal experience, seed is the only probiotic prebiotic that has ever worked for me and it's the only one I've ever promoted on this channel. So, I put a link down below for 20% off. I noticed it within about a week or two. Most people that I talk to notice it even less than that.

[00:02:46]So, check it out. Take care of your gut.

[00:02:47]It's really where you should be starting with a lot of this. So, that link is down below. So, when we come back to the kidneys, your body tightly regulates your blood pH within a super narrow range. I mean, we're talking down to the tenth, right? So, roughly 7.35 to 7.4.

[00:03:00]45 pH. Okay, the bicarbonate buffering system is one of the primary ways that it does this in our body. Your lungs control carbon dioxide. Your kidneys adjust bicarbonate levels. Together, they actually keep our acid in check.

[00:03:14]But in chronic kidney issues, the kidneys gradually lose that ability to clear the acid efficiently. So, your hydrogen ions build up, bicarbonate drops, and you end up in a state called metabolic acidosis. Maybe you've heard of keto acidosis, but metabolic acidosis is a big deal because even mild chronic acidosis drives muscle breakdown. It drives bone mineral loss and of course it's going to skyrocket inflammation and this feeds back into further kidney issues. So that study that I mentioned at the beginning, that 740 patient trial, a 60% drop. Here's what happened.

[00:03:44]Okay, this was published in the journal Nefrology and it was an RCT on patients with either stage 3 to 5 CKD. Okay, so they put 376 in the by carb group and 364 in the standard care group and they followed them for 30 months. Okay, so long data, lots of people. In the standard care group, 17% progressed to significant kidney failure. In the bicarbonate group, only 6.6%. So from 17% down to 6.6 is about a 60% relative reduction. They also saw dialysis rates drop 6.9 versus 12.3. Mortality was lower, 3.1 compared to 6.8. But what the researchers concluded is that by restoring this acidbased balance with supplemental by carb, you're basically reducing the metabolic stress that's accelerating this kidney decline. So you're not just managing symptoms, you're actually spearheading and getting directly to the main mechanism that's driving the damage. And one thing that's worth noting that it would be irresponsible to say without is that diet plays a huge role here, too. So certain dietary patterns, right, especially those with a lot of processed foods, these are going to have a higher net acid load. fruits and veggies, things like this on the other hand, Mediterranean style stuff, these have compounds that metabolize into by carb precursors. Okay, so this is real stuff.

[00:04:52]Supplementation and diet can compound each other. And we're going to come back to this because this is all relevant with the gut section. But I want to talk about exercise for a minute. So when we come back to talk about the gut, I think you're going to learn some very specific things. And remember, we're also going to talk about the specific amount you need to take. So the ISSN published this position stand specifically on sodium bicarbonate in performance. This is one of the few supplements that earned that level of formal review. You ever wonder that this isn't really talked about that much? Do you think it's because it's so flipping cheap? We're talking like a penny a serving. So, during high-intensity exercise lasting roughly 30 seconds to 12 minutes, your muscles produce large amounts of hydrogen ions from rapid glycolysis. That lowers intracellular pH and it contributes to this burn you feel. Okay? It's not the lactic acid that's causing the burn.

[00:05:39]It's hydrogen. Sodium bicarb raises extracellular bicarbonate concentrations which creates a stronger gradient for hydrogen ions to move out of the muscle cell. So you're it's not about the lactate or the lactic acid as the burn.

[00:05:52]It's the hydrogen. So you're essentially giving your body a bigger buffer to work with against that burn. The research is supporting performance improvements in activities that rely heavily on this anorobic metabolism. So, combat sports, CrossFit, sprint cycling, rowing, sprinting, swimming, like fast-paced exercises, anything like that. But let's get into the effect of dose for a second. It's not much. All you really need is about 0.3 g per kilogram of body weight. Okay,.3 g per kilo. You can do that simple math. You can ask chat or Google and you'll get it in 2 seconds.

[00:06:23]Okay, you want to do this about 60 to 180 minutes before exercise. And you can actually do it as a multi-day loading option, too. So, in this case, you go a little bit higher. So, 0.4 four to 0.5 grams per kilogram per day split into smaller doses over like three days to a week. This way you're not going to deal with maybe the GI discomfort that you might get from a single large dose. And then there's a longer term angle here.

[00:06:44]Some research actually suggests that regularly training with elevated buffering capacity may let you tolerate high training intensity or volume. So you're not just buffering acid on competition day. You're potentially expanding what your body can handle during training. And this compounds, you're actually not enabling yourself.

[00:07:03]You're actually making yourself stronger, which is wild. How can something that makes your workouts easier not enable you? It's wild. But it all connects here with the gut. Okay.

[00:07:12]After food leaves your stomach, your pancreas naturally releases bicarbonate into the small intestine and this neutralizes gastric acids so that digestive enzymes can do their job. So bicarbonate is already central to how your gut naturally processes food. But then if we pivot over to a study that was in the journal of clinical gastroenterology. This compared sodium bicarbonate to a conventional aluminum magnesium ant acid. Okay. And this was with patients that had ulcers. They found that baking soda increased stomach pH and reduced hydrogen ion concentration. But the effect only lasted about an hour compared to roughly 2 hours for the ant acid. So take the good with the bad, right? But the reason here is that by carb dissolves in the liquid phase of a meal and it leaves the stomach faster whereas the ant acid moves with the solid portion and lingers longer. So short-lived but it's also very fast acting which matters if you're dealing with like a surge in acid reflux. So it's almost going to hit quicker. But this next part is very interesting. Okay, this came from a study in renal failure and it looked at the gut kidney axis. They found that sodium bicarbonate in mice reduced kidney crystal deposition. It also improved kidney function and it lowered markers of oxidative stress and inflammation. Not to mention strengthening the intestinal barrier by increasing expression of these tight junction proteins. So we've got like Z1, zulin, we've got oludin, we've got cloudin and it shifted the composition of the gut microbiome while simultaneously reducing intestinal inflammation. So it's like the idea is very straightforward. By improving the gut barrier integrity, you're basically reducing inflammatory signaling from the intestines and you're also reducing systemic inflammation and oxidative stress that further contribute to organ injury. So essentially in this case kidneys. So your gut and your kidneys are talking to each other and bicarbonate appears to improve that conversation. Now finally the weird part in your mouth. Okay, your oral microbiome is extremely influenced by pH. When bacteria metabolize sugars, they produce organic acids that drop pH and create conditions that favor acid tolerant species, the ones that are associated with tooth decay and the ones that break down the enamel on our teeth.

[00:09:12]So if we look at the journal of maxloof facial surgery, this had 25 people rinsed with a sodium bicarb solution and they found that salivary pH increased with a modest reduction in bacterial colony counts. So basically they remodeled their oral microbiome. A shift in pH created conditions that were less favorable for bad microbes that were driving the plaque and decay. So what's interesting is that unlike an antiseptic mouthwash that completely wipes out bacteria, by carb changes the environment so the good bacteria survives. So it makes conditions less hospitable for the harmful species without completely carbon bombing the entire rest of your oral ecosystem. So to put it all together for kidney support, the clinical trial used oral sodium bicarb for a longer period of time and relatively low doses, right?

[00:09:56]Right? We're talking like even 0.1 to.3 gram per kilogram. Okay, they paired this with that good Mediterranean style diet. Lots of fruits, lots of veggies.

[00:10:04]So, you're kind of creating more of these by carb precursors. And then for exercise, we're talking 0.3 to 0.5 g per kilogram. Okay? And you're doing this 60 to 180 minutes or a multi-day loading.

[00:10:15]That's going to kind of give you that bigger buffer. And then for digestion, just very small amounts dissolved in water. So, you could do a teaspoon of this stuff. Okay? Just mix with some water. And that way you're kind of getting this fast acting ant acid. Just know that the effect is short, but which is kind of good. You don't always want to prolong this ant acid effect because you still need some level of acid, right? Then for oral health, you're going to make a rinse, right? So anytime you have acidic meals, so coffee, citrus, soda, it's going to help you restore that oral pH so your microbiome is more balanced in the oral region.

[00:10:47]You're not getting the just nuking your whole mouth, right, with all the microbes. So across all of these, but there's something that's super important that we need to know across all of these things. Hydration and electrolyte balance matter with this because bicarbonate buffering works alongside sodium, potassium, and magnesium. So we want to make sure that those are covered because these support everything that we've talked about. Like a box of baking soda costs almost nothing. Okay? The research behind it spans kidney protection, exercise performance, gut barrier, oral health. Like it is legit probably the best ever bang for your buck. The dosing and timing are very specific to what you're using it for, but now you know exactly how much to match with each one. If you're interested in learning more about kidney health, I did an interview with a kidney researcher, Dr. Jacob Torres, about the worst foods for the human body, specifically the kidneys. Very fascinating. So, I'll link to that video right here. Highly recommend you check it out. And as always, I'll see you