Baking Soda Trick: Does It Work? What Studies Show

The baking soda trick means three different things. Here's what the studies found for each, the sodium in every spoon, and a measured 1/4 tsp version for anyone who still wants to try it.

Here's where the trick goes wrong first: it isn't one trick. And no matter which one you mean, we found no human trial showing it burns fat. What it reliably does is add sodium to your day. The full weight evidence lives in our pillar, does baking soda help you lose weight. This page sorts out what people mean and what the research behind each meaning found.

What is the baking soda trick? Three meanings

Search the phrase and you land on three different things.

The morning drink is a spoon of baking soda stirred into water and drunk first thing, often with lemon or apple cider vinegar, and sold as a weight-loss move. Most pages describe this version. Their doses disagree, from 1/4 tsp (1.15 g) to 1 tsp (4.6 g) in a glass.

Soda loading means athletes drinking a large, weight-based dose of sodium bicarbonate before hard exercise. MedlinePlus describes drinking it to try to boost athletic performance as dangerous. It has its own research, covered below, and it isn't the morning drink.

Then there's the men's version. A viral ad recipe claims baking soda has an effect on sexual performance. We found no human trial behind that claim, so there's nothing to measure. The safety limits below apply to anyone who drinks it.

One more, to clear the air: the salt and baking soda trick is a household cleaning tip, not a drink, and this page doesn't cover it.

The Food Science / Lab Kitchen Note

Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Poison Control says swallowed baking soda rapidly makes a large volume of carbon dioxide, which can build dangerous pressure in the stomach. The risk is higher after heavy drinking or a large meal.

Lemon juice or vinegar makes the glass fizz with carbon dioxide. That changes the bubbles, not the sodium, which stays in the water.

The numbers below are our own arithmetic from published figures, not a study result. USDA FoodData Central lists 27,400 mg of sodium per 100 g of baking soda and 1 tsp as 4.6 g. A level 1/4 tsp (1.15 g) works out to about 315 mg of sodium. A 1/2 tsp (2.3 g) is about 630 mg, and 1 tsp is about 1,260 mg. One brand label on retailer pages lists 616 to 656 mg per 1/2 tsp, so we write about 600 to 650 mg for a half teaspoon.

What the studies show

The weight evidence

The pooled evidence we found is a 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis in Food Science & Nutrition by Navab and colleagues. It pooled 17 randomized trials (21 arms, 2,203 participants), all in patients with chronic kidney disease, and found no significant effect of oral sodium bicarbonate on body weight. It isn't a weight-loss study and says nothing about healthy people. We found no human trial of baking soda for fat loss.

The exercise evidence

For exercise, the 2021 International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand (Grgic and colleagues, 10 statements from an expert panel, a review and not a trial) says 0.2 to 0.5 g per kg of body weight improves high-intensity and muscular-endurance performance, best established for efforts of about 30 seconds to 12 minutes. It also says part of the effect may be placebo. A 2011 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine (Carr, Hopkins and Gore) pooled 59 studies of buffering agents. For sodium bicarbonate (38 studies, 137 estimates) it found a possibly moderate 1.7 percent enhancement, plus or minus 2.0 percent, in a single 1-minute sprint. A 2025 meta-analysis (Miller and colleagues) pooled 11 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover studies of continuous running (126 participants, 84 percent male). It found a negligible overall benefit (SMD 0.18, not significant, p = 0.06), with stomach and gut symptoms in 29.5 percent of runs on bicarbonate against 2.6 percent on placebo. None of this speaks to weight.

The gap in dose is the part viral posts skip. The sports panel calls 0.3 g/kg optimal for a single dose. For a 70 kg adult that's about 21 g (about 4.6 tsp, about 5,750 mg of sodium), and even the 0.2 g/kg low end is about 14 g. Our recipe uses 1.15 g, roughly 18 times less than the 21 g figure (our arithmetic). Those numbers are here for contrast. They aren't instructions.

Three versions compared from the data

This is a comparison of published data, not a taste test or a trial of our own. Where nothing is sourced, the cell says so.

Sodium scales with the spoon, so here it is per dose, against the American Heart Association limit of 2,300 mg a day for most adults (ideal limit 1,500 mg):

The AHA also notes the 1,500 mg goal may not fit people who lose a lot of sodium in sweat.

How to make the plain version

The card above is the whole recipe: 1/4 tsp (1.15 g) in 8 fl oz (240 mL) of plain water, stirred until clear. It's the low end of the viral range, and it's still about 315 mg of sodium in a glass of water.

Many cooks report that baking soda water tastes salty, bitter or soapy, and some say it's hard to get down. The usual workarounds are more water, a pinch of lemon or honey, or mixing it into another drink. Each one changes what's in the glass. If you want the lemon version with the numbers worked out, see baking soda and lemon water. For the vinegar version, see baking soda and apple cider vinegar. The weight-loss ratio with sodium counted is in our baking soda recipe for weight loss.

Common mistakes

Heaping the spoon is the first one. Viral cards run from 1/4 tsp to 1 tsp, and sodium rises in step, so level it with a knife every time.

Next comes drinking it fast on a full stomach. The carbon dioxide has to go somewhere, and Poison Control ties stomach tears to pressure after a large meal. Stir until clear, sip, and keep it away from big meals.

The last is making it a daily habit. MedlinePlus sets a 2-week limit for antacid use. A morning routine has no sourced limit at all, so we don't recommend one.

Substitutes and swaps

Storage and handling

Mix one glass and drink it. We found no USDA or FDA storage guidance for baking soda water, so there's no shelf life to quote. Keep the dry box closed and away from moisture and children. No make-ahead tip here. Fresh is the only version we can source.

Nutrition note

Values on the recipe card are estimates calculated from typical USDA FoodData Central values for baking soda and plain water, per glass. They aren't measured. The glass carries 0 kcal and about 315 mg of sodium, all of it from the baking soda. That's about 14 percent of the 2,300 mg daily limit (our arithmetic). Lemon or honey would change the other numbers, but not the sodium.