Baking soda can cut seconds off speed.

Scientists have proven what athletes have been claiming for years - that Granny’s old cure-all, bicarbonate of soda, can enhance performance.

‘Soda-doping’, as it is known amongst professional sportsmen, can have a significant effect on endurance and speed.

Baking soda appears to work best to enhance speed. A study at Loughborough University found that of nine swimmers who took baking soda before an event, eight reduced their times, the Times reports.
Jonathan Folland, who led the study, said: ‘Essentially, sodium bicarbonate is an alkali substance that increases the pH of the blood.
‘This seems to reduce and offset the acidity produced in the muscles during intense, anaerobic exercise that produces lactic acid most quickly, such as fast running or swimming.’

Sodium bicarbonate, as anyone whose taken it for indigestion knows, reduces acids - helping the body to deal with the acidic waste products produced during exercise, that tire us more quickly.
But the substance isn’t a miracle-worker - shaving seconds, not minutes, off performance time - so that only the most proficient athletes will notice a difference.

The swimmers in the Loughborough study cut 1.5 seconds from their 200m time. Which is hardly significant for most of us who take a leisurely few laps up and down the pool.

A study at the American College of Sports Medicine found that runners could also improve performance with baking soda.

But the substance - used before modern times as a household cleaning agent - can cause upset stomachs, and tastes foul. ‘It is not dangerous, but it tastes appalling,’ warns Dr Folland.
He says that only those who are very serious about sport should try the white powder, which may cause diarrhea.

Article by Daily Mail Reporter
16th August 2008

The government has suggested that more and more people are turning to meditation, herbs, yoga and other forms of alternative medicine because of lack of results with conventional care. One of the largest U.S. studies conducted on alternative medicine found that over one-third of American adults practiced some type of non-conventional medicine in 2002.

The report was based on information from 31,044 interviews with adults aged 18 and older.

Researchers believed the results of the study pointed to the fact that more people are using alternative medicine. Also, it was apparent that an increasing number of people have turned to natural products like herbs or enzymes to help with chronic or recurring pain.

Experts suggested that people should not neglect conventional medicine in those instances where it has been proven to help certain conditions and also recommended consulting a doctor before practicing alternative medicine. Experts were concerned about the number of people turning to alternative medicine because they felt they were no longer able to afford the costs of conventional care.

Experts cautioned people who assumed that just because a product was natural that it was automatically safe to use. An example they cited was the 6.6 percent of people in the study found to use the supplement kava, which has been linked to liver disease.

Significant findings from the study include:

• 62 percent of the participants used some form complementary and alternative medicine over the past year for a specific medical condition, broken down as follows:

# Prayer for own health, 43 percent
# Prayer by others for the respondent’s health, 24 percent
# Natural products (such as herbs, other botanicals, and enzymes), 19 percent
# Deep breathing exercises, 12 percent
# Participation in prayer group for own health, 10 percent
# Meditation, 8 percent
# Chiropractic care, 8 percent
# Yoga, 5 percent
# Massage, 5 percent
# Diet-based therapies, 4 percent

• 45 percent turned to some kind of prayer to help them heal in the past 12 months
• There was a higher tendency for women to use complementary and alternative medicine than men
• 28 percent of the participants felt that conventional treatment would not help them

Reference: Center for Disease Control National Center for Health Statistics May 27, 2004 (20-page Full-Text PDF Report)

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