Simple Bicarb May Help Autoimmune Diseases

May 05, 2018

Simple Bicarb May Help Autoimmune Diseases

 

 References: J. Immunology


 Fascinating! When you drink simple bicarb (Yes, Arm and Hammer cheap stuff) you send several messages in your body we didn't know about. The first is to make more acid the next time around to help digest the next meal. And the second is for mesothelial cells on the spleen to signal to all the immune cells inside the spleen to chill out. "Don't make an immune response." What are mesothelial cells? They are the lining of your guts, your abdominal cavity. Every organ is lined with them on the outside. We thought they were there primarily so that the organs can slide over each other with no friction. That feature allows you to move without things being caught up inside. But the surface of mesothelial cells have an interesting feature. They have tiny little fingers called microvilli that signal messages internally to the organ beneath about invasion or intrusion. Mount an immune response, or not! 


 Here is what this study found. Drinking bicarb for a couple of weeks changed the internal splenic macrophages from a population of mostly M1 macrophages (turn on inflammation) to M2 macrophages (Turn off inflammation). Considering that the spleen is the main repository for immune cells waiting for dispatch, that effect is pretty meaningful. What is unique is that the message is transmitted through the wall of the stomach, via these mesothelial cells, into the wall of the spleen via its mesothelial cells with a result of lowered inflammatory response. 


Macrophages are typically known for gobbling up garbage from old, dead, dysfunctional tissue and they are some of the first to arrive on the scene in inflammation to clean up the "battlefield" of dead and dying tissue. Autoimmune diseases are thought to be a whole scene of dysfunctional, overreactive inflammation and activation of macrophages. Turning them off is a key thing. It's not just macrophages but also Treg cells that get altered with bicarb. Treg cells are supposed to be regulators of immune response and help dial it down. This dialing down is helpful at controlling weird autoimmune reactivity too. And this also occurs because of the messages from those mesothelial cells putting out acetylcholine, acting almost like nerve cells even though they are lining cells of organs. Strange cross over reactivity. 


 Where does alkaline predilection come from? Through most of human history, we were vegans, starting to eat meat just a few million years ago when our brains started getting bigger and needed animal energy to power them. Animal protein has lots of sulfur in it making for a biological ash of acid when all is digested and done. Plant sourced food ends up making alkali with all the magnesium and potassium salts. Most of our biological processes evolved in an alkaline environment. The range and intricacy of our immune function is all founded on an alkaline milieux. Animal food, hence acid, is new. You can measure this in yourself. Eat a diet of pure green vegetables for a week and measure your urinary pH. It will be above 7. Have some cheese and steak and watch your urine pH plummet to 5.5. Every drug store carries pH sticks you can measure on your own.  Ten servings of vegetables is about 1 tsp of bicarb.  Simple 


 WWW.what will work for me. Considering how much of the Longevity Diet by Longo is based on vegetables, we may find that part of its power comes from shifting the immune response from inflammatory, to anti-inflammatory. Here is a clue that we are probably all better served with more vegetables. Their alkaline salts help you out. So, I ordered doubled vegetables for dinner last night instead of a potato. Then the blooming onion hors d'oeuvres did me in. I'm not sure it really counts as a vegetable.   


 Pop Quiz

  1. Your internal organs are lined by what type of cells?                         Answer: Mesothelial cells
  2. Mesothelial cells are lined by what cellular feature?                          Answer: Tiny fingers called "microvilli".
  3. This article says these cells do what?                                    Answer:  The communicate across organs and downregulate inflammatory immune response
  4. What class of diseases is this particularly useful?                        Answer:  Autoimmune in which there appears to be unregulated inflammation.
  5. You can get the same effect of a tsp of bicarb by eating what type of food?                 Answer:  LOTS of vegetables, green in particular.  Roots won't do it as well, if at all.

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