Drinking baking soda dissolved in water can provide quick, short-term relief from heartburn and indigestion, but it comes with real risks that make it a poor choice for regular use. A single teaspoon contains 1,260 milligrams of sodium, which is more than half the recommended daily limit for most adults. Used occasionally and in small amounts, it’s generally safe for healthy people. Used carelessly, it can cause dangerous complications.
How It Works for Heartburn
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is a base that reacts with stomach acid to form salt, carbon dioxide gas, and water. This reaction temporarily raises the pH in your stomach, reducing acidity and easing the burning sensation of heartburn or acid reflux. Relief typically begins within minutes because the chemical reaction happens fast.
The tradeoff is that the neutralizing effect doesn’t last long. Your stomach keeps producing acid, so symptoms often return. And the carbon dioxide gas produced by the reaction causes burping, bloating, and sometimes abdominal discomfort. For occasional heartburn after a heavy meal, this might be perfectly acceptable. For recurring symptoms, it’s not a sustainable solution, and the underlying cause needs attention.
The Sodium Problem
The biggest everyday concern with drinking baking soda is sodium. One teaspoon delivers 1,260 mg of sodium. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 mg per day, with an ideal limit of 1,500 mg for most adults. So a single teaspoon of baking soda gets you somewhere between 55% and 84% of your daily sodium budget before you’ve eaten anything.
That sodium load causes your body to retain water, which raises blood pressure. For people with heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, liver disease, or edema (swelling in the legs and feet), this fluid retention can worsen their condition. Anyone on a sodium-restricted diet should avoid drinking baking soda entirely.
What Happens If You Take Too Much
Overdoing it with baking soda pushes your blood chemistry toward a condition called metabolic alkalosis, where your blood becomes too alkaline. Symptoms of taking too much include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle spasms, muscle weakness, irritability, and in severe cases, convulsions. If the vomiting and diarrhea aren’t controlled, serious dehydration and electrolyte imbalances can follow, potentially triggering dangerous heart rhythm disturbances.
There’s also a rarer but more dramatic risk: stomach rupture. Baking soda rapidly produces a large volume of carbon dioxide gas, which can create dangerous pressure levels inside the stomach. This is especially likely after alcohol binging or a large meal, when the stomach is already full and has less room to expand. Cases of gastric rupture from baking soda, while uncommon, are documented in medical literature and can be life-threatening.
Who Should Avoid It
Several groups of people should not drink baking soda at all. According to the Mayo Clinic, conditions that can worsen with sodium bicarbonate use include:
- Heart disease or high blood pressure, due to sodium-driven fluid retention
- Kidney disease or liver disease, which impair the body’s ability to handle extra sodium and maintain electrolyte balance
- Edema, since retained water worsens swelling
- Appendicitis symptoms (abdominal pain, cramping, bloating, nausea), which baking soda can mask or worsen
- Intestinal or rectal bleeding
Baking soda also changes the pH of your digestive tract, which can alter how medications are absorbed. If you take prescription drugs regularly, the timing and effectiveness of those medications may be affected.
Baking Soda for Athletic Performance
One legitimate use of sodium bicarbonate that gets less attention is as a sports supplement. During intense exercise, your muscles produce hydrogen ions that contribute to the burning fatigue you feel. Bicarbonate in the bloodstream helps buffer those hydrogen ions, allowing athletes to sustain high-intensity effort slightly longer.
The Australian Institute of Sport recommends athletes consume 200 to 400 mg per kilogram of body weight about two to three hours before competition, taken with a small carbohydrate-rich meal. For a 70 kg (154 lb) person, that works out to roughly 14 to 28 grams, which is far more than you’d take for heartburn. At these doses, blood buffering capacity stays elevated for three to four hours. The catch is that gastrointestinal side effects (bloating, cramping, diarrhea) are common, which is why athletes typically experiment with timing and dosage during training rather than on competition day.
Supervised Medical Uses
Doctors sometimes prescribe sodium bicarbonate for people with chronic kidney disease who develop metabolic acidosis, a condition where the kidneys can no longer remove enough acid from the blood. A 2024 meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials involving over 2,000 patients found that sodium bicarbonate supplementation significantly improved kidney function markers, with younger patients (under 65) seeing the greatest benefit.
This is a carefully monitored medical treatment, not a DIY approach. The same meta-analysis found that sodium bicarbonate raised systolic blood pressure in participants, reinforcing the tension between its kidney benefits and its cardiovascular risks. Doctors balance these tradeoffs with regular blood work and blood pressure monitoring.
Practical Guidelines for Occasional Use
If you’re a healthy adult using baking soda for occasional heartburn, keep the amount small: half a teaspoon dissolved in a full glass of water. Don’t take it on a very full stomach or after drinking large amounts of alcohol, as the rapid gas production in an already-distended stomach increases the risk of serious injury. Wait at least two hours after eating before using it.
Don’t use it for more than two weeks in a row. If your heartburn keeps coming back, the baking soda isn’t solving the problem. It’s masking it. Persistent acid reflux often signals a condition that benefits from targeted treatment rather than repeated neutralization of stomach acid. Over-the-counter antacids designed for regular use are formulated with lower sodium loads and more predictable dosing than a box from your pantry.