Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) helps to save countless lives every day.

Boris Veysman, specialist in emergency medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey, describes one emergency room experience:

The emergency department is always noisy, but today the triage nurse is yelling "not breathing," as she runs toward us pushing a wheelchair. A pale, thin woman is slumped over and looking gray. Without concrete proof of a "Do Not Resuscitate" order, there's no hesitation.

Click, klang, and the patient has a tube down her throat within seconds. I do the chest compressions. On the monitor, she is flat-lining — no heartbeat. I synchronize my words with the compressions and call out for an external pacemaker. Pumping ... thinking: Cardiac standstill ... after walking in ... with cancer ... on chemo. This resuscitation isn't by the book.

"Get two amps of bicarbonate," I say to the intern. The jugular line takes seconds, and I flush it with sodium bicarbonate. This probably will correct the blood's extreme acidity, which I suspect is driving up the potassium. The external pacemaker finally arrives. Potent electric shocks at 80 beats per minute begin to stimulate her heart. The vitals stabilize.

Sodium bicarbonate is an emergency room intensive care medicine that can be used in cancer treatment as well as in fighting the symptoms of the flu. It is not a substitute for dietary corrections that leads one eventually into a healthy alkaline existence but it can be used quite effectively to change the terrain of tissues and cells quickly.

I start this landmark medical book with the words above. We are talking about serious medicine when we talk about sodium bicarbonate. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) lives up to the image on the Arm and Hammer’s box, it is the ultimate heavy-weight workhorse medicine that every healthcare professional and parent should be knowledgeable about and routinely use.

Everyone should know how to wield the mighty muscle (the famous Arm and Hammer logo is the appropriate image for sodium bicarbonate) of baking soda; knowing intimately its power and flexibility of application. Like magnesium chloride administration possibilities are versatile: intravenous, oral, transdermal, in lotions and baths, via catheter; it can also be vaporized directly into the lungs and be used in enemas and douches.

Bicarbonate is present in all body fluids and organs and plays a major role in the acid-base balances in the human body. Bicarbonate deficiencies spell big trouble for human physiology when the vascular system begins to deteriorate as less oxygen is delivered to the cells. Bicarbonate deficiency is synonymous with carbon dioxide deficiencies, which occur in everyone who does not exercise properly. Bicarbonate is the wonderful medicine it is because it turns into carbon dioxide in the stomach, which drives bicarbonates into the blood.

One of the greatest secrets in medicine is that bicarbonate and carbon dioxide are really two forms of the same thing and change into each other at the speed of light in the blood.

Baking soda is an essential medicine and is probably one of the most useful substances in the world. No wonder the pharmaceutical companies do not want doctors or anyone else to know much about it! Sodium Bicarbonate is an important medicine - of the safest - and it is essential when treating cancer, kidney and other diseases.

Sodium Bicarbonate: Nature's Unique First Aid Remedy is on sale on Amazon and other book stores. It brings people into awareness of a substance that can ease their aches and pains and even save lives like it does routinely in the emergency and intensive care wards.