This test is very easy to do at home, safe, and virtually free, besides the cost of a quarter teaspoon of baking soda.
This test works by creating a chemical reaction in your stomach produced when baking soda and stomach acid are mixed. The natural result should be a production of carbon dioxide which should make you burp.
This test has many components that can cause false positives or false negatives. To minimize these chances and achieve a greater degree of accuracy, I recommend running this test for three consecutive mornings to find an overall average.
It is also best to do this test when you get up in the morning, before eating or drinking anything. You are looking for a trend, not a simple “yes” or “no”.
There are no published data on this method and its reliability is questionable. Results may vary from person to person depending on how the experience is interpreted. However, I like to use this test as a baseline since it’s quite simple and you can easily retest each month to see if you notice any changes.
This is how you do the test:
- Upon rising, before eating or drinking anything…
- Mix ¼ tsp. baking soda in 4-6 oz cold water.
- Drink the baking soda mixture
- Measure how long it takes you before you burp. It can take up to 5 minutes.
How to interpret the results
- If you haven’t burped within 5 minutes, then that’s a sign of insufficient stomach acid production.
- If you burped right after consuming the mixture and repeatedly, it may be due to too much stomach acid production. However, it is important not to confuse these with small burps due to the air that entered when you drank the mixture. If you burped after 3 minutes, it may be an indication that stomach acid production is low.
