Lactic acidosis often challenges the intensivist and is associated with a strikingly high mortality. Treatment involves discerning and correcting its underlying cause, ensuring adequate oxygen delivery to tissues, reducing oxygen demand through sedation and mechanical ventilation, and (most controversially) attempting to alkalinize the blood with IV sodium bicarbonate. Here we review the litera...

BACKGROUND Patients with acute respiratory failure may develop respiratory acidosis. Metabolic compensation by bicarbonate production or retention results in posthypercapnic alkalosis with an increased arterial bicarbonate concentration. The hypothesis of this study was that elevated plasma bicarbonate levels decrease respiratory drive and minute ventilation. METHODS In an intervention study ...

The family of mammalian bicarbonate transport proteins are involved in a wide-range of physiological processes. The importance of bicarbonate transport follows from the biochemistry of HCO(3)(-) itself. Bicarbonate is the waste product of mitochondrial respiration. HCO(3)(-) undergoes pH-dependent conversion into CO(2) and in doing so converts from a membrane impermeant anion into a gas that ca...

Doxorubicin, a broad-spectrum antitumor antibiotic, causes dose-dependent cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Although the exact molecular mechanisms of cardiotoxicity are not well established, oxidative mechanisms involving doxorubicin-induced superoxide anion production have been proposed. In this study, we show that bicarbonate, a physiologically relevant tissue component, greatly amplified do...

The response of the pancreatic bicarbonate secretory mechanism to secretin and the relationship between bicarbonate concentration and flow rate in pancreatic juice have been re-examined following reports describing decreasing levels of bicarbonate concentration at high flow rates. Both anaesthetized and chronic fistula dogs were used. The results show that when high doses of secretin elicit hig...

This report aims to look at the role of Sodium bicarbonate as a potent Ergogenic aid and its role in improving the performance of athletes. It includes the mechanism of action of sodium bicarbonate during high-intensity exercise. The report also shows the various types of athletes who can be benefited from sodium bicarbonate loading, evidences for improvement in performance, conflicting evidenc...