Monday, September 13. Replacing baking soda.

There are people who swear that a teaspoonful
of baking soda in water, taken every morning, reduces their uric acid. But if you have high blood pressure, that much baking soda is dangerous. Baking soda consists of sodium and carbonate, and when dissolved in water the solid dissolves into a sodium ion and two carbonate ions. But when sodium is combined whith a clorine ion, it forms a stronger bond with that chlorine ion than with the carbonate ions.
As you may know, your stomach is full of a very strong acid, called hydrochloric acid. But as the acid contains some water, it is composed of hydrogen ions and chlorine ions. So the sodium ions, when they land in the stomach, turn to sodium chloride. Better known as table salt. That is what is dangerous if you have high blood pressure. It also means sodium can not be the ingredient in sodium bicarbonate that reduces uric acid (if there is one).
Since the the sodium can not be the active ingredient in sodium bicarbonate, the other part must be what is active. That is, the bicarbonate.
There are two ways bicarbonate could affect the uric acid level. Either it penetrates into the blood and somehow makes it all the way to the toes without
interacting with someting, and turns the uric acid crystals which are stored embedded in protein bubbles in the cells into something which can be execreted through the kidneys; or it interacts with the uric acid in the blood that the liver has just produced and which is not yet stored in the cartilage; or it reduces the purines in the stomach (in the food you eat) so they will not be taken up in the blood and sent to the liver and turned to uric acid.
If bicarbonate has any effect on the level of uric acid in the blood, and it does not do it by interacting
with the purines in the food, then this should become visible since I have elevated uric acid levels right now as I am losing weight - so the purines becoming uric acid does not come from anything I eat, but from my own body, since I am on a purine-restricted diet.
To do this, I need to come up with a substitute for bicarbonate of soda. Luckily, there are several other bicarbonates available from supplement stores. The most common are potassium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate (better known as talcum). But potassium can disrupt your heart if you have high blood pressure. Which I do.
So mixing them and then taking a teaspoonful of the mix means I get one third of the mineral content. This should not be a problem, as the dose becomes much lower than what is problematic according to litterature. But let us see. I will try for fourteen days, and if there is any effect it will become visible in the UA measurement that I do every day.
​Todays weather and temperature: A lot colder, around 24 degrees but up to 29 during the day.
Current stress level (scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high)): 4
Breakfast: No breakfast
What time did I eat?: Not at all
Lunch: Vegetable curry
What time did I eat?: 1230
Snack: Nuts
What time did I eat?: 1500
Dinner: Rice, egg, and natto. With vegetables.
What time did I eat: 1900
​What time did I finish eating for the day? 1930
Todays supplements and dosage: 6 fish oil capsules, 2 liter hibiscus tea, 1 spoonful of sodium bicarbonate/potassium bicarbonate/magnesium bicarbonate mix in water.
Todays UA reading (before breakfast): 8.4 mg/dL
Todays step count (total at bedtime): 14817 steps
How much did I drink today?: Water 1 liter, coffee 1 liter, hibuscus tea 2 liter.
This weeks weight: 117.4 kg
​Waist circumference: 119 cm
Heart rate before bedtime (read more here to see why it matters): 95 bpm
Blood pressure before bedtime (read more here to see why it matters): 134/96 mmHg
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 6
Was my urine strange in any way? No
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 10
Days since my last gout attack: 23
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