A (Jersey City, USA) on 06/01/2008
First of all, I am NOT an expert, and all my knowledge is really just based on what I've read. I have been grappling with the issue of whether combining ACV & Baking Soda diminishes its effectiveness in any way in the body. I've read practically all the comments on the Earthclinic website related to this in great detail. A nagging suspicion in my gut tells me that taking ACV with baking soda is NOT the same as taking ACV and/or baking soda alone. Unfortunately, I don't have enough expertise or knowledge to put together a plausible thesis; and all my exhaustive research has NOT provided me a convincing answer yet. Therefore, I am merely positing a hypothesis for question/commentary from informed readers.
Here it goes. My gut feel, and based on whatever information I can gather, taking ACV with Baking Soda (or Lime with Baking Soda), is probably NOT the same as taking either of those alone. The body needs to break down complexed minerals (such as sodium ascorbate, magnesium citrate, etc.) into ions before they can be absorbed. Therefore, when you react ACV with baking soda, that is no different than taking a complexed mineral of sodium acetate and sodium malate, together with whatever else might be in the ACV. Now, does the body absorb the sodium malate and sodium acetate the same way as it would the acetic acid and malic acid to be found in ACV alone? How easily does the sodium malate or sodium acetate breakdown in the body for absorption vs. just taking the ACV alone? That's the question? My nagging suspicion is that the body doesn't treat them the same way, in which case the effectiveness of ACV would get diminished by combining it with Baking Soda.
I understand Ted's point that the body is going to neutralize the acids anyways with its mineral buffers. But what comes first? Does the body absorb the malic acid and acetic acid first before neutralizing? If so, then is sodium malate or sodium acetate correspondingly harder to absorb by the body b/c it has to be broken down and ionized first?
I was reading Tim O'Shea's online book on how minerals get absorbed in the body (http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/minerals/Minerals.shtml). He says that acidic state is necessary for ionization of complexed minerals. In other words, for a sodium malate to breakdown into ionic sodium and malate to be absorbed by the body. I quote from his online book "If the pH is too alkaline, the ions won't disassociate from whatever they're complexed with, and will simply pass on through to the colon without being absorbed." So, my question is, does most of the ACV when combined with baking soda just gets passed through the body without getting absorbed? Is an ACV absorbed better by the body when it is by itself? If you want to alkalize, while also get the benefit from drinking ACV or limes, then is it better then to just take them separately some hours apart?
Also, I have read in many places that the absorption rate of complexed minerals is only about 1 - 20%, i.e., rather low. As per Tim O'Shea and others I have read, minerals get absorbed by two ways. (1) The body needs them in which case it sends protein messengers/transporters to the lining of the gut wall to absorb that particular mineral. (2) Diffusion. So, if your body doesn't need sodium, say for example, then is it just going to ignore the sodium malate or sodium acetate? In that case, would the malic and acetic acids in ACV alone be better absorbed by the body?
Since modern science/information can be so corrupted, one thing I am learning to do whenever presented with a remedy, etc is to ask how this might have been done several thousand years ago, when perhaps things were less corrupted. Although I could be totally wrong, I don't imagine our ancestors and the Ayurveda folks mixing ACV with Baking Soda. They probably drank the ACV or baking soda alone.
On another note, I have tried ACV with Baking Soda for about 10 days now. I don't feel much effect, other than getting my urinary PH in the above 7 range. If the sodium malate and sodium acetate are simply getting passed through into the urine, surely they would make the urine PH alkaline. My salivary PH is still in the 6.25 range, which is another whole issue that I need to figure out. (I am scared of one of Ted's commentaries in one of these postings that suggested that a urinary ph higher than salivary is indicative of fungus or cancer. I am 35 years old, and believe I have Candida). This is another reason that made me really think hard about ACV & Baking Soda b/c I didn't feel that this remedy was alkalizing my salivary PH, therefore, I was wondering if it's just passing through in the urine? I am vegetarian, and have been trying to include more fruits and vegetables recently. So, I don't think I have a potassium deficiency issue per se.
I know that that the ACV and Baking Soda remedy has been tried by numerous readers with great success. Therefore, I am merely positing this inquiry in an effort at greater understanding, rather than pretending to know what I am talking about.
Many thx, and I look forward to engaging more with the Earthclinic community!
Replied By Salli (Madison, United States) on 06/01/2008
Replied By Ted (Bangkok, Thailand) on 06/04/2008
As to the issue of ionization and mineral availability, I give you a simple example. Salt, or sodium chloride. A sodium and chloride will dissociate completely in a water solution.
If the person takes acetic acid, ascorbic acid, or apple cider vinegar, it will cause the body's urine pH to be acid. Ancient Tibetan medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and even Traditional medicine frequently mentions people to avoid sour and sweet foods when they are sick.
The biological degradation naturally occurs whenever the body is acid. This is how the bacteria, fungus, for example decomposes and organism. However, if a living organism is in acid state, then it causes the organism to be sick.
I have found that foods ideally should have a negative ORP, since they are antioxidant where it is measured in negative millivolts. Therefore, for this to occur, if you do have a Oxidation Reduction Potential meters, the values should be -100 millivolts to -200 millivolts. Antioxidation occur when it becomes an electron donor. However apple cider vinegar is acid, and hence, ORP is about +300 millivolts which causes the body to loose electrons, becoming oxidative.
As to the issue of raising saliva pH, this can only occur with adequate potassium levels such as potassium citrate or potassium bicarbonate. In which case if baking soda is 1/2 teaspoon than 1/8 teaspoon is potassium citrate in 1/2 glass of water. Urinary pH checks extracellular fluids which is the sodium element, while saliva pH checks intracellular fluids, which is the potassium and magnesium element.
As to the bioavailability of minerals in a acid or alkaline medium. The solution is really simple: If a person is already in an acid state and continues to take mineral, the mineral taken becomes a free radical, since the ORP is positive. If it is a free radical, it becomes a pro-oxidant instead of an antioxidant. The body's physiology in bicarbonate chemistry is pronounce in a human body. So whether you take it or not, with the baking soda, helps if the body has inadequate bicarbonate to begin with.
Finally, I make really no real dividing line whether to take apple cider vinegar or baking soda and apple cider vinegar, for one good reason: if you can take apple cider vinegar without baking soda for years without problem then it is fine. However, in practice, people do have problems taking apple cider vinegar in the long run if the body cannot neutralize the acid.
As to ancient medicine, most herbal preparations are of alkaline in nature, which is why they taste to bitter. I have had a chance to measure many of these pH and found them to be alkaline in nature, while on the other hand the food we eat 90% are of acid in nature and ORP are often positive in nature of +300, instead of a negative ORP, which is more healthful as it doesn't steal electrons from healthy cells causing accelerated aging.
Ted
Replied By Bret (Phoenix, Arizona) on 06/05/2008
Raising urine ph and/or saliva ph doesn't mean blood ph or intercellular ph has changed at all.
Also, Ted, when an antioxidant donates it's hydrogen and neutralizes a free radical, (-OH) what is left is a double bonded oxygen, which most people seem to forget about. Nice to neutralize free radicals but how come nobody mentions that antioxidants can actually donate this oxygen molecule? Thanks, Bret
Replied By Ted (Bangkok, Thailand) on 06/06/2008
As to the sodium and potassium are extracellular and intracellular in which electrical charge differences between that is kept at a constant to help electrical potential differences are the key. The key is the role of bicarbonates in regulating pH buffer to be within an extremely narrow range of pH is the most critical mechanism there is. Calcium are generally toxic intracellularly, as are lactic acid and other organic acid.
The human physiology requires that potassium can't be exceed in a certain percentage in extracellular fluids, which is very small so that it doesn't disturb the electrical potential differences of cellular system.
This is why death row inmates are killed by injection of potassium intravenously, and it doesn't require a large amounts to kill people. In an ordinary saline I.V. where sodium is used (so why don't the use potassium chloride? ) most of these are sodium chloride, so a fast drip can kill you within an hour because these doesn't have the require buffer at a pH of 7.35. Therefore you can kill people just by either altering pH or giving excess potassium even just 50/50 sodium and potassium saline solution.
Therefore, either excessive potassium or an altering of pH of to only 7.1 or 7.2 can kill you. Much of the issues in human health is the issue of lack of bicarbonates in regulating a very narrow range of pH which is why people get sick.
Therefore the correlation between Sodium and CO2 is a narrow description that doesn't explain how bicarbonates regulates the pH. The explanation is that much of human physiology is always the rule of sodium bicarbonate in regulating carbonic acid, or the bicarbonates rather than the issue of sodium.
Sodium is needed by extracellular fluids and potassium is needed by extracellular fluids to maintain electrical potential differences. In dying people the electrical potential differences are small and that's why extracellular fluids had to be slightly more alkaline then intracellular fluids to keep electrical potential differences.
If too much potassium in in extracellular fluids, the cell dies. In fact there are many reported deaths from taking too much potassium. Therefore much of the role is the bicarbonates, not the sodium that is what we are after in buffering systems whether we talk about sodium or potassium or even magnesium, whether they are extracellular fluids or intracellular fluids in this general equation. Basically if Carbon dioxide are produced by the cells, it become H2CO3 to prevent the solutions from becoming acid. This is why distilled water is very acid if you leave it out in the air, and the pH immediately goes from 7 to 6 within a couple of hours. A distilled water simply don't have the bicarbonates to buffer the carbonic acid.
Since you are more concerned about textbook explanation, a more detailed explanation should be explained elsewhere in the internet not a home remedy website because of my limited time in answering the emails (I am a month's behind answering emails and many emails are much more desperate than a theoretical explanation where other biochemistry website can treat this situation much better), so I will cut and paste a small excerpt here:
http://www.similima.com/phy18.html
Buffering of hydrogen ions in the body fluids
A buffer is any substance that can reversibly bind H+. the general form of the buffering reaction is
Buffer + H+ H Buffer
In this example, a free H+ combines with the buffer to form a weak acid (HBuffer) that either remain as an unassociated molecule or dissociate back to buffer and H+. When the H+ ion concentration increases, the reaction is forced to right and more H+ bind to the buffer, as long as available buffer is present. Conversely when the H+ concentration decreases, the reaction shifts towards the left and H+ are released from the buffer. In this way changes H+ concentration are minimized.
I. THE BICARBONATE BUFFER
SYSTEM
A typical bicarbonate buffer system consists of a mixture of carbonic acid (H2C03) and sodium bicarbonate (NaHC03) in the same solution.
H2C03 is formed in the body by the reaction of CO2 with H2O
CO2+H2O H2CO3
Carbonic anhydrase
This reaction is slow unless enzyme carbonic anhydrase is present. This enzyme is especially abundant in the wall of lung alveoli; where CO2 is released; also epithelial cells of renal tubules where CO2 reacts with H2O to form HC03- .
H2C03 ionises weakly to form small amount of H+ and HC03-
H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-
The second component bicarbonate salt occurs predominantly as sodium bicarbonate NaHC03 in the extracellular fluid. NaHC03 ionises almost completely to form bicarbonate ions and sodium ions.
NaHC03 Na+ + HC03-
Now putting the entire system together,
CO2+H2O H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-
{ +Na+
Because of the weak dissociation of H2C03 the H+ concentration is extremely
small.
When a strong acid such as HCl is added to bicarbonate buffer solution, the
increased H+ released from acid.
HCl H+ + Cl- are buffered by HC03-
%u2191 H++ HC03- H2CO3 CO2+H2O
As a result, more H2C03 is formed, causing increased CO2 and H2O production. From this reaction, the hydrogen ions from the strong acid, HCl, react with HC03- to form CO2 and H2O. The excess CO2 greatly stimulates respiration, which eliminates the CO2 from the extracellular fluid.
The opposite reactions take place when a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide (Na OH), is added to the bicarbonate buffer solution.
Na OH + H2CO3 NaHCO3+H2O
In this case, the hydroxyl ion (OH-) from the NaOH combines with H2CO3 to form additional. Thus the weak base NaHCO3 replaces the strong base NaOH. At the same time, the concentration of H2CO3 decreases (because it reacts with NaOH), causing more CO2 to combines with H2O to replace the H2CO3.
CO2+H2O H2CO3 %u2191 HCO3- + H+
+ +
NaOH Na
The net result is a tendency for the CO2 levels in the blood to decrease; but the decreased CO2 in the blood inhibits respiration and decreases the rate of CO2 expiration. The rise in blood HCO3- that occurs is compensated for by increased renal excretion of HCO3-.
Quantitative dynamics of the bicarbonate buffer system
All acids, including H2CO3 are ionized to some extent. From mass balance considerations, the concentrations of hydrogen ions and bicarbonate ions are proportional to the concentration of H2CO3.
H2CO3 H++ HCO3-
For any acid, the concentration of the acid relative to its dissociated ions is defined by the dissociation constant K'.
K' = (1)
This equation indicates that in an H2CO3 solution, the amount of free hydrogen ions is equal to
H+= (2)
The concentration of undissociated H2CO3 cannot be measured in solution because it rapidly dissociates into CO2 and H2O or to H+ and HCO3-. However, the CO2 dissolved in the blood is directly proportional to the amount of undissociated
H2CO3. There fore, equation (2) can be written as
H+= (3)
The dissociation constant (K) for Equation (3) is only about 1/400 of the dissociation constant (K%uFFFD) of equation (2) because the proportionality ratio between H2CO3 and CO2 is 1to 400.
Equation (3) is written in terms of the total amount of CO2 dissolved in solution. However, most clinical laboratories measure the blood CO2 tension (Pco2) rather than the actual amount of CO2. Fortunately, the amount of CO2 in the blood is a linear function of times the solubilitycoefficient for CO2; under physiologic conditions the solubility coefficient for CO2 is 0.03 mmol/mmHg at body temperature .this means that 0.03mmmol of H2CO3 is present in the blood for each millimeter of mercury Pco2 measured. There fore equation (3) can be
rewritten as
H+= (4)
Henderson-Hasselbalch Equation.
As discussed earlier, it is customary to express hydrogen ion concentration in pH units rather than in actual concentrations. Recall that pH is defined as
pH = -log H
The dissociation constant can be expressed in a similar manner pK = -log K
Therefore, we can express the hydrogen ion concentration in equation (4) in pH
units by taking the negative logarithm of that equation, which yields
-log H+ = -log pK %uFFFD log (5)
pH = pK -- (6)
Rather than work with a negative logarithm, we can change the sign of the logarithm and invert the numerator and denominator in the last term, using the law of logarithms to yield
pH = pK + (7)
For the bicarbonate buffer system,the pK is 6.1, and equation 7 can be written
as
pH = (8)
Equation 8 is the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation, and with it one can calculate the pH of a solution if the molar concentration of bicarbonate ion and the Pco2 are known.From the Henderson-Hasselbalch, equation, it is apparent that an increase in bicarbonate ion concentration
causes the pH to rise, shifting the acid-base balance toward alkalosis. And an increase in Pco2 causes the pH to decrease, shifting the acid base balance toward acidosis.The Henderson-Hasselbalch equation, in addition to defining the determinants of normal pH regulation and
acid-base balance in the extracellular fluid, provides insight into the physiologic control of acid and base composition of the extracellular fluid. The bicarbonate concentration is regulated mainly by the kidneys, whereas the Pco2 in extra cellular fluid is controlled by the rate ofrespiration. By increasing the rate of respiration, the lungs remove CO2 from the plasma, and by decreasing respiration, the lungs elevate Pco2. Normal physiologic acid-base homeostasis results from the coordinated efforts of both of these organs, the lungs and the kidneys, and acid-base disorders occur when one or both of these control mechanisms are impaired, thus altering either the bicarbonate concentration or the Pco2 of extracellular fluid.
When disturbances of acid-base balance result from a primary change in extracellular fluid bicarbonate concentration, they are referred to as metabolic acid-base disorders. Therefore, acidosis caused by a primary decrease in bicarbonate concentration is termed metabolic acidosis, whereas alkalosis caused by a primary increase in bicarbonate concentration is called metabolic alkalosis. Acidosis caused by an increase in Pco2 is called respiratory acidosis, whereas alkalosis caused by a decrease in Pco2 is termed respiratory alkalosis.
Bicarbonate Buffer System Titration Curve.
When the concentrations of HCO3- and CO2 are equal, the right-hand portion of equation 8 becomes the log of 1, which is equal to 0. Therefore, when the two components of the buffer system are equal, the pH of the solution is the same as the pK (6.1) of the bicarbonate buffer system. When base is added to the system, part of the dissolved CO2 is converted into HCO3- causing an increase in the ratio of HCO to CO, and increasing the pH, as is evident from the 1-lendersonHasselbalch equation. When acid is added, it is buffered by HCO,-, which is then converted into dissolved CO2 decreasing the ratio of HCO3- to CO2 and decreasing the pH of the extracellular fluid.
As to the issue of baking soda destroys vitamin C, this is much an urban legend. If I want to make sodium ascorbate vitamin C, I merely react vitamin C ascorbic acid with baking soda to get sodium ascorbate. The form of vitamin C used by the body is a more physiological pH vitamin C of sodium ascorbate as it meets the extracellular fluids rich in bicarbonates. In fact ascorbic acid are pro-oxidant while sodium ascorbate are an antioxidant. The urine pH becomes acid when taking ascorbic acid, and it becomes alkaline with sodium ascorbate. An antioxidant sodium ascorbate will register negative ORP millivolts between -200 to about -300, indicating surplus electrons, while on the other hand ascorbic acid has a positive millivolts of about +200 to +400 depending on the concentration of the vitamin C. A vitamin C therefore is a two edge sword that can be an oxidant or an antioxidant depending on the amount of baking soda or bicarbonates that is added, and
therefore, baking soda doesn't destroy vitamin C, it causes the vitamin C to be more antioxidant, and interestingly enough, sodium ascorbate is more stable than ascorbic acid because it is more more physiologically compatible with the body, being slightly alkaline in nature as opposed to acidic ascorbic acid.
Ted
Replied By Bret (Phoenix, Arizona) on 06/11/2008
Replied By Debra (Sierra Vista, AZ) on 10/29/2008