SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

You will be pleased to hear that the 30% increase in serum bicarbonate observed in the loading study was achieved in the absence of gastrointestinal distress in ALL subjects. Sunday, September 22, 2019, was 'bicarbonate day' in the SuppVersity Facebook News : What does that even mean? Well, the daily 'classics', i.e. links to archived SuppVersity articles, were all about the polyatomic anion HCO3 . Today's article brings NaHCO3, aka baking soda, back into the limelight - as a  post -workout re-alkalizer that can be used with a newly developed and proven  bicarbonate loading protocol  that will help you avoid diarrhea and work even more efficiently than the classic 0.3-0.5g/kg protocols 😮 Read more about exercise-related studies at the SuppVersity Tri- or Multi-Set Training for Body Recomp.? Aug '15 Ex.Res. Upd.: Nitrate, Glycogen, and ... Pre-Exhaustion Exhausts Your Growth Potential Full ROM ➯ Full Gains - Form Counts! BFR-Preconditio- ni...

The combination of aspartate + bicarbonate may make an involuntary rest phase on the floor of the gym obsolete.  It has been while that sodium bicarbonate , aka  NaHCO3 , or (pure) baking soda has made the SuppVersity news. The ergogenic aid recently made the TOP-list of "supplements with good to strong evidence of achieving benefits to performance when used in specific scenarios" in the published "IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete" ( Maughan 2018 ) - a short list in which bicarbonate is listed next to caffeine , creatine , nitrates , and beta-alanine , and a list which doesn't include aspartate as a putative congenial synergist, yet.   Aspartate , a salt or ester of aspartic acid is a nonessential amino acid that has a central role in hepatic glyconeogenesis as it is the substrate to the aspartate aminotransferase  enzyme in the liver , an enzyme of which you know that it is significantly elevated by (intense...

The press release that accompanied the publication of a study from the Augusta University  seems to promote baking soda as a panacea for every (auto-) immune/inflammation-related disease.  It sounds almost too good what a recently published press-release from the Augusta University claims ( read it ): "A daily dose of baking soda may help reduce the destructive inflammation of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis." WOW! ... but wait. This cannot be true, can it? Well, the mechanism that is introduced in the press release does not seem to be totally absurd. The fact that a temporary alkalization of the otherwise acidic chyme in the stomach will trigger for the production of an increased amount of stomach acid has been known for decades (it is also why classic antacids usually make heartburn worse when used more than occasionally | Maton 1999 ). You can learn more about bicarbonate and pH-buffers at the SuppVersity Caffeine + Bicarb Make Champions Alka...

You can sure get the cheap stuff from the supermarket, but if you realize it's working for you, buying several kg in bulk costs hardly more than the packets on containers you will find in the baking section of your local grocery store. For SuppVersity veterans, it's no news that you can take your 0.3-0.5g/kg body weight of baking soda, i.e. NaHCO3 or sodium bicarbonate, spread across three days before an event and still see enormous benefits. I discussed this strategy and corresponding evidence in form of a study in trained cyclists as early as in 2012 (My, that's more than 5 years ago... reminds me that I have been doing this for quite some time, now ;-). In the meantime, I have repeatedly addressed the performance enhancing (and health) effects of bicarbonate, but ... and that's relevant for those of you who cannot stomach large(r) quantities of baking soda... 99% of the newer studies on performance are conducted with acute sodium bicarbonate dosing in the prev...