The main reason why people think that baking soda can reduce uric acid and treat gout may be that the concepts of blood uric acid and urine uric acid are confused. What causes hyperuricemia and gout is the increase of uric acid level in blood; Elevated uric acid levels in urine can lead to hyperuricemia or uric acid kidney calculi. Although uric acid levels in blood and urine are sometimes not completely parallel, it is obvious that the main cause of hyperuricemia is hyperuricemia. It can be understood that hyperuricemia, which shows an increase in uric acid level, is only one of the complications of hyperuricemia.
Uric acid in blood can be excreted with urine only after it is metabolized by kidney. If urine can't be excreted in time and in sufficient quantity, uric acid in urine will accumulate to a saturated value, which will not affect the level of blood uric acid, but its crystallization and deposition (kidney calculi) in the urinary tract may cause direct damage to the urinary system. Uric acid, as a weak organic acid, can be converted into urate with higher solubility in alkaline environment, which is beneficial to the dissolution of uric acid in urine. Only soluble urate is beneficial to excretion from urethra.
Baking soda can only act on urine (alkalization), which can improve hyperuricemia (uric acid level in urine), but it can't reduce uric acid level in blood, and it has no direct or obvious help to improve hyperuricemia. Therefore, the purpose and function of taking baking soda for patients with gout and hyperuricemia is to alkalize urine, promote the dissolution and excretion of uric acid in urine, and reduce the damage of uric acid deposition in urine to kidneys.
Baking soda is beneficial to the control of uric acid level, but it has no obvious benefit to blood uric acid level. Baking soda also has side effects and should not be taken in large quantities for a long time. Although baking soda is not a panacea for gout, alkaline urine is an important means to prevent and treat renal damage caused by gout. Patients with gout who are contraindicated by baking soda can consider Youlaite (more expensive) with relatively small side effects, or often soak in water with substances with the same origin of medicine and food such as lemon and hawthorn, and regularly monitor the pH value of urine.