# Haldane effect

Category: Metabolism

Oxygen displaces carbon dioxide from hemoglobin, in proportion to its partial (specific) pressure.

11 passages · 2 authors · 1998–2022 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/haldane-effect

## Synthesis

**The Haldane effect** describes the physical equilibrium in which increased oxygen pressure decreases the amount of carbon dioxide retained by hemoglobin, and decreased oxygen pressure increases the amount of CO2 retained. [Source 1, 10] Peat defined it succinctly: *oxygen displaces carbon dioxide from hemoglobin*, in proportion to its partial pressure. [Source 10] This effect, together with the Bohr effect (where CO2 or acidity displaces oxygen), governs the reciprocal release of these gases, ensuring that hemoglobin releases oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide in the capillaries, and releases carbon dioxide in the presence of oxygen in the lungs. [Source 2, 5]

Peat argued that the Haldane effect is not limited to hemoglobin but constitutes a **general regulatory system** applying to proteins broadly. [Source 2, 4] Carbon dioxide reacts with **amino groups**—such as those on lysine residues—to form carbamino groups, changing a protein’s shape, electronic balance, and isoelectric point. [Source 4, 9] This binding makes the protein *less accessible to oxygen*, protecting against oxidative attack. [Source 2, 4] In the absence of CO2, other molecules like sugars can occupy these sites, leading to pathological glycation and altered protein function. [Source 9] This general protein effect underlies CO2’s role in cellular structure, enzyme regulation, and hormone receptor behavior. [Source 2, 9]

At high altitude, the lower oxygen pressure triggers the Haldane effect to increase **carbon dioxide retention**, which makes cellular respiration more efficient. [Source 1, 5] This adaptation explains the **lactate paradox**, where maximal exercise at altitude produces less lactic acid than at sea level, despite lower oxygen availability. [Source 7, 10] Peat held that retained CO2 suppresses glycolysis and lactic acid formation by maintaining an appropriately acidic intracellular pH, preventing the alkaline shift that drives inefficient *Warburg-type metabolism*. [Source 7, 11] Failure to adapt causes a loss of CO2, an increase in lactate, and a rise in capillary leakiness that impairs oxygen diffusion. [Source 1]

Peat connected the Haldane effect directly to the protective physiology of high-altitude populations, noting that insurance statistics have shown lower cancer mortality at altitude for over a century. [Source 2, 7] He cited studies showing that degenerative conditions like **cataracts** and **heart disease** are less common at higher elevations, attributing this to CO2’s ability to prevent the *swelling pathology* caused by lactic acid excess and water retention. [Source 3, 5, 10] Roddy has written that high altitude, via the Haldane effect, adaptively increases the number and efficiency of mitochondria in the brain. [Source 8] Peat maintained that the therapeutic use of carbon dioxide—whether through altitude adaptation, acetazolamide, or direct inhalation—mimics the Haldane effect’s beneficial retention of CO2, countering the harmful consequences of hyperventilation and pure oxygen breathing. [Source 1, 6]

## People also ask

### How does the Haldane effect relate to the Bohr effect?

The Haldane effect and Bohr effect are reciprocal: the Haldane effect describes oxygen displacing carbon dioxide from hemoglobin, while the Bohr effect describes carbon dioxide or acidity displacing oxygen, together governing gas exchange in lungs and capillaries.

### Why does Peat consider the Haldane effect a general protein regulatory system?

Peat argued that carbon dioxide binds to amino groups on proteins beyond hemoglobin, forming carbamino groups that alter shape and charge, protecting against oxidative damage and preventing pathological glycation when CO2 is absent.

### How does the Haldane effect explain lower cancer rates at high altitude?

Peat noted that lower oxygen pressure at altitude triggers CO2 retention via the Haldane effect, which suppresses lactic acid formation and swelling pathology, contributing to reduced cancer mortality and degenerative conditions.

## Related concepts

- [Bohr effect](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/bohr-effect/index.md)
- [Lactate paradox](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/lactate-paradox/index.md)
- [Amyloid](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/amyloid/index.md)
- [Arthritis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/arthritis/index.md)
- [Association-Induction Hypothesis (Gilbert Ling)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/association-induction-hypothesis-gilbert-ling/index.md)
- [ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/atp-adenosine-triphosphate/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — This Novel Flu Season

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2020

> The causes of relative hyperventilation continue to be disputed.
>
> The basic principles of respiration, the Bohr and Haldane effects, describe the physical equilibria of oxygen and CO2 in people who have adapted to living at different altitudes. The Haldane effect describes the fact that increased oxygen pressure decreases the amount of carbon dioxide retained by hemoglobin, and decreased oxygen pressure increases the amount of CO2 retained. A steady increase of retained CO2 with increasing altitude occurs in those who adapt. People who fail to adapt experience a loss of CO2, with an increase of lactate. It has become increasingly common to treat altitude sickness with carbon dioxide. A few people have argued for a long time that mechanical ventilation would be less harmful if a mixture of CO2 and O2 were used (Laffey and Kavanagh, 1999; Kregenow and Swenson, 2002), analogously to the therapeutic effect of CO2 in high altitude sickness (Harvey, et al., 1988).
>
> In a state of chronic stress, oxidative energy production is low, and mediators of inflammation are likely to be chronically increased; there is typically a chronically increased production of lactate, and/or decreased oxidation of it. In this state, the increased ventilation caused by high altitude will cause an increased loss of carbon dioxide, increasing the pH of the blood, which increases the formation of lactic acid. The lactate increases the leakiness of capillaries and loss of fluid, and decreases the ability of oxygen to diffuse from the alveolus to the erythrocyte. Since carbon dioxide diffuses many times more rapidly than oxygen, this diffusion barrier results in low blood CO2 at the same time as hypoxia. Even at sea level, an increase of lactate immediately increases the lungs’ diffusion barrier.
>
> Thinking of the infection as the disease, and therefore considering the “receptor,” “entry,” and replication of the virus to be sufficient to explain damage to infected cells, tissues, and organs, and defining the disease as an inflammation of the respiratory tree and lung, the hospital system went into action. Failing to think of the intestine (which is infected as easily as the nose and lungs), the meaning of events throughout the organism, including the lungs, is misunderstood.

### Source 2 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Altitude (July 2013)

Ray Peat · Interview · 2013

> **Sarah Johannesen Murray and Andrew Murray:** Excellent, OK well that is actually what we are going to talk about this month. So that’s good news. OK. I know that for some time now, I have been made aware like all things and most things we are slowly – for want of a better word -­ evolving and being re-­trained. My mind certainly, has been re‐trained Dr Peat, since I left university studying Herbal Medicine. In much the same way our physiology and pathology – clinical skills not so much -­ but pathology and physiology were very much dictated by the texts at the time and quite a lot of that seems to be erroneous. I know that you have really, gosh, opened our eyes to certain things that I thought were just the way they were -­ but actually they are very different, and I know perhaps during this evening’s talk when I am going to ask you to outline the benefits, say for example, of elevation and that I know we are going to come across a lot of different co-­factors which are all helpful and all have a part to play, if you like, in the restoration of health. So, perhaps let’s start with elevation ‐ as we are going to talk about the effects of high elevation -­ what does high elevation do for a person? How, 'cause I think the thing that strikes me most is that we all know about communities that are famous for having high populations of longevity, and how does elevation confer longevity to a human?
>
> **Ray Peat:** That’s actually the essence of the problem -­ is what is the outstanding feature that affects all of the high populations? A hundred years ago, insurance companies already knew that the actuaries were looking at the mortality figures for different diseases, and they saw that cancer, for example, was much less common in all of the high cities of the world. And as recently as the 1950s, Linus Pauling was sure that those figures must be wrong because he said he knows radiation causes cancer and the radiation in Denver is much higher than in New Orleans, for example. But the figures show that the cancer rate in New Orleans and San Francisco is much higher than in Denver. He said that just must be a mistake, but the insurance companies have had the figures for over a hundred years. And the part of the thing is, that the radiation that you get at high altitudes is less harmful because of its lower energy transfer. Its high energy cosmic rays basically go through you without causing much damage but the altitude causes the ‘Haldane Bohr Effect’. Everyone knows about that in physiology, that it explains what happens when you breathe and when the oxygenated haemoglobin reaches your tissues down in the capillaries, the Haldane Bohr Effect explains the fact that oxygen, when it sticks to haemoglobin, changes the haemoglobin molecule causing the CO2 to come loose, and when you have a high concentration of CO2 down in your capillaries, the CO2 sticking to the haemoglobin causes the oxygen to come loose and become available to the tissues. And, strangely, there has been almost no research, just maybe a couple of dozen papers applying that Haldane Effect to other proteins, but in the case of haemoglobin, the molecule just happens to be in the right position to transport oxygen and CO2 in the blood. But the few people who have tested other proteins find that’s a general effect, the Haldane Bohr Effect applies to proteins in general.

### Source 3 — The Transparency of Life

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2006

> When cells metabolize, they create gradients. In the cell, electrical, chemical, osmotic, and thermal gradients, for example, are constantly being produced or maintained. The whole substance of the cell is involved in its life processes. Because of prejudices introduced 200 years ago, the life of the cell has been relegated to its “membrane” (where hypothetical “membrane pumps” reside) and its nucleus. When the term “cell” (hollow space) came into use instead of “corpuscle” (little body), a mind-set came into existence that discounted the importance of most of the living material, and claimed that it was a mere “random solution.” Random solutions don't do much. The wonderful “membrane,” under the direction of the nucleus (and its set of instructions), took care of everything.
>
> Whenever assimilation or excretion took place, it was explained by inventing a property possessed by the cell “membranes.” Therefore, we have physiology textbooks that have an unfounded explanation for everything. Before Copernicus, planetary movements were described as arbitrary “epicycles.” They didn't make sense, but people studied them and felt that they were important. “Membrane physiology” is the modern equivalent of the Ptolemaic epicycles.
>
> We know that glucose can be metabolized into pyruvic acid, which, in the presence of oxygen, can be metabolized into carbon dioxide. Without oxygen, pyruvic acid can be converted into lactic acid. The production of lactic acid tends to increase the pH inside the cell, and its excretion can lower the pH outside the cell.
>
> The decrease of carbon dioxide that generally accompanies increased lactic acid, corresponds to increased intracellular pH. Carbon dioxide binds to many types of protein, for example by forming carbamino groups, changing the protein conformation, as well as its electrical properties, such as its isoelectric point. With increased pH, cell proteins become more strongly ionized, tending to separate, allowing water to enter the spaces, in the same way a gel swells in an alkaline solution.
>
> The Bohr-Haldane effect describes the fact that hemoglobin releases oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide, and releases carbon dioxide in the presence of oxygen. When oxygen is too abundant, it makes breathing more difficult, and one of its effects is to cause carbon dioxide to be lost rapidly.

### Source 4 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Altitude (July 2013)

Ray Peat · Interview · 2013

> **Ray Peat:** But a few people who have tested other proteins find that That's a general effect. The Haldane-Bohr effect applies to proteins in general. When there's a lot of carbon dioxide, it basically changes the pH or the isoelectric point of the protein, making it less accessible to oxygen. And that in itself is a protection against the attack of oxygen against proteins. But more than that, the particular group that carbon dioxide sticks to on a protein, such as hemoglobin, is an amino group.

### Source 5 — The Transparency of Life

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2006

> The Bohr-Haldane effect describes the fact that hemoglobin releases oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide, and releases carbon dioxide in the presence of oxygen. When oxygen is too abundant, it makes breathing more difficult, and one of its effects is to cause carbon dioxide to be lost rapidly. At high altitude, more carbon dioxide is retained, and this makes cellular respiration more efficient.
>
> The importance of carbon dioxide to cell control process, and to the structure of the cell and the structure of proteins in general suggested that degenerative diseases would be less common at high altitude. Wounds and broken bones heal faster at high altitude, but the available statistics are especially impressive in two of the major degenerative conditions, cancer and cataracts.
>
> The two biggest studies of altitude and cataracts (involving 12,217 patients in one study, and 30,565 lifelong residents in a national survey in Nepal) showed a negative correlation between altitude and the incidence of cataract. At high altitude, cataracts appeared at a later age. In Nepal, an increase of a few thousand feet in elevation decreased the incidence of cataracts by 2.7 times. At the same time, it was found that exposure to sunlight increased the incidence of cataracts, and since the intensity of ultraviolet radiation is increased with altitude, this makes the decreased incidence of cataracts even more important.
>
> All of the typical causes of cataracts, aging, poisons, and radiation, decrease the formation of carbon dioxide, and tend to increase the formation of lactic acid. Lactic acid excess is typically found in eyes with cataracts.
>
> The electrical charge on the structural proteins will tend to increase in the presence of lactic acid or the deficiency of carbon dioxide, and the increase of charge will tend to increase the absorption of water.
>
> The lens can survive for a considerable length of time *in vitro* (since it has its own circulatory system), so it has been possible to demonstrate that changes in the composition of the fluid can cause opacities to form, or to disappear.
>
> Oxidants, including hydrogen peroxide which occurs naturally in the aqueous humor, can cause opacities to form quickly, but they will also disappear quickly in a solution that restores metabolic energy. The lens regulates itself powerfully; for example, it will swell when put into a hypotonic solution, but will quickly adapt, returning to approximately its normal size.

### Source 6 — Altitude and Mortality

Ray Peat · Article · 2006 · https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/altitude-mortality.shtml

> People who live at very high altitudes live significantly longer; they have a lower incidence of cancer (Weinberg, et al., 1987) and heart disease (Mortimer, et al., 1977), and other degenerative conditions, than people who live near sea level. As I have written earlier, I think the lower energy transfer from cosmic radiation is likely to be a factor in their longevity, but several kinds of evidence indicate that it is the lower oxygen pressure itself that makes the biggest contribution to their longevity.
>
> “Mountain sickness” is a potentially deadly condition that develops in some people when they ascend too rapidly to a high altitude. Edema of the lungs and brain can develop rapidly, leading to convulsions and death. The standard drug for preventing it is acetazolamide, which inhibits carbonic anhydrase and causes carbon dioxide to be retained, creating a slight tendency toward acidosis. This treatment probably mimics the retention of carbon dioxide that occurs naturally in altitude adapted people.
>
> The reasons for mountain sickness, and the reasons for the low incidence of heart disease, cancer, cataracts, etc., at high altitude, offer clues to the prevention of death and deterioration from many other causes.
>
> When the weather in a particular place is cool, sunny and dry (which in itself is very good for the health) the atmospheric pressure usually is higher than average. Although sunny dry weather is healthful, periods of higher pressure correspond to an increased incidence of death from heart disease and strokes.
>
> The Haldane-Bohr effect describes the fact that oxygen and carbon dioxide destabilize each other’s binding to hemoglobin. When oxygen pressure is high, the blood releases its carbon dioxide more easily. In stormy weather, or at high altitude, the lower oxygen pressure allows the body to retain more carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, produced in the cells, releases oxygen into the tissues, relaxes blood vessels, prevents edema, eliminates ammonia, and increases the efficiency of oxidative metabolism.
>
> Hyperventilation, breathing excessively and causing too much carbon dioxide to be lost, is similar to being in the presence of too much oxygen; it’s similar to being at low altitude with high atmospheric pressure, only worse. Therefore, the physiological events produced by hyperventilation can give us an insight into what happens when the atmospheric pressure is low, by looking at the events in reverse.

### Source 7 — Bioelectric Fields, Regeneration, and the Lactic Acid Myth

Ray Peat · Article · 1998

> (It has also been thought that sodium and water can stimulate proliferation. For example, Berman, et al., 1995.)
>
> Something as simple as reducing the pH can prevent apoptotic ("organized" or "programmed") cell death. (K.P. Hanson and V. E. Komar, Molecular Mechanisms of the Radiation Death of Cells, Energoatomizdat, Moscow, 1985). Carbon dioxide, produced by respiration, and ATP hydrolysis, are two powerful acidifiers of the cell; with sufficient stimulation both can probably act simultaneously, and in this situation the pH decrease will tend to oppose the exciting stimulus. Without sufficient oxygen to make CO2, a given stimulus might cause excitation and probability of death. The insufficiency of oxygen also leads to a relatively reduced state of the cytoplasmic proteins, increasing their electrical charge at a given pH.
>
> CO2 has many other effects that act in the same protective direction, such as calcium removal, iron binding, and water binding, and these other effects are at least as important as the pH (Badylak and Babbs, 1986 showed that the combination of a calcium blocker and an iron chelator with carbon dioxide tripled the survival after 7 minutes of cardiac arrest.) Adequate CO2 is intimately involved in the disposition of calcium, and calcium's regulatory significance is universally recognized. K. P. Buteiko believed that increased carbon dioxide in the body fluids sometimes caused cancers to disappear. In many studies over the last 40 years (and the trend can also be seen in insurance statistics published in 1912), it is found that cancer mortality is much lower at high altitude.
>
> Under all conditions studied, the characteristic lactic acid metabolism of stress and aging is suppressed at high altitude, as respiration is made more efficient. The Haldane effect shows that carbon dioxide retention is increased at high altitude. Studying athletes at sea level and at high altitude, it was seen that less lactic acid is produced by maximal exercise at high altitude than at sea level. Since oxygen deficiency in itself tends to cause the formation of lactic acid, this has been called the "lactate paradox"; the expectation was that more lactic acid would be formed, yet less was produced. Something was turning off the production of lactic acid.

### Source 8 — A Bioenergetic View of Estrogen: Not "The Female Hormone"

Danny Roddy · Article · Jun 4, 2013

> Similar to thyroid hormone, high altitude (i.e., the Haldane effect) adaptively increases the number and efficiency of mitochondria in the brain (Meyerson F, et al., 1972).
>
> As briefly mentioned above, unsaturated fats increase estrogen (Reed, et al., 1986; Bruning P, et al., 1988; Benassayag C, et al., 1999). Animals on "essential fatty acid" deficient diets had higher metabolic rates than controls (George O, et al. 1934), possibly because of the increase in the mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome c oxidase (Kunkel H, et al. 1951), which has been called the "choke point" for energy production in various situations.
>
> When considering where to obtain the bulk of one's calories, carbohydrates are richer in oxygen and burning them generates about 30 percent more carbon dioxide per calorie than burning fat, and high-fat low-carb diets (HFLC) have been shown to lower blood levels of carbon dioxide (al-Saady N, et al., 1989).
>
> Anecdotally, on a diet of 70%+ fat my carbon dioxide levels were around 22 mmol/L and now hover around 30 mmol/L (I eat anywhere from 300-600 carbohydrate a day currently). I can now breath comfortably through my nose, too.
>
> Because carbon dioxide enhances the ability of the mitochondria to consume oxygen and produce useful energy, I think HFLC diets are estrogenic for a few different reasons; reduced respiratory quotient, increased levels of lactic acid, and the tendency towards high levels of NEFA that can form prostaglandins that stimulate the aromatase enzyme (Dawes and Rushton 1994).
>
> Adequate dietary protein is needed to detoxify estrogen (Biskind G, et al., 1946). Ray Peat often recommends 80-100 grams (and more for athletes) from milk, cheese, eggs and shellfish. An excess of phosphate in relation to calcium may increase the aromatase enzyme. (Bellino F, et al., 1989).
>
> Reduced bowel transit time decreases estrogen (Lewis S, et al., 1997). Dr. Peat's famous carrot salad influences intestinal health (Robertson J, et al. 1979).

### Source 9 — Energy Structure and Carbon Dioxide A Realistic View of the Organism

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2013

> If there is a need for adaptation, without the necessary substance and energy, the cell or organism will either deteriorate or withdraw. Polyunsaturated fats with inappropriate structure interfere with these adaptive flows of energy and substance in all of the known systems of cellular response. These exogenous substances suppress the respiratory energy system, the intercellular communication systems, and the intracellular response systems. Immunodeficiency, autoimmunity, inflammatory diseases, aging, cancer, heart disease, nervous diseases, and hormonal imbalances are produced when these fats interfere with the spontaneous self-regulatory processes of the organism.
>
> When respiration is suppressed, the cell's production of carbon dioxide is suppressed. If we start with the best known example of carbon dioxide's effect on a protein, the Haldane-Bohr effect on hemoglobin, we will have a model for visualizing what happens to organisms in an environment that is poor in carbon dioxide, but rich in vegetable-derived unsaturated fats.
>
> Carbon dioxide associates with protein in a variety of ways, but the best understood association is its reaction with an amino group, to form a carbamino group. In the presence of a large amount of carbon dioxide, the hemoglobin molecule changes its shape slightly, along with its electronic balance, in a way that favors the release of oxygen. The opposite happens in the presence of a high concentration of oxygen and a lower concentration of carbon dioxide. Other factors can modify the effects of these gases on hemoglobin's shape, electronic properties, and its binding affinities. Wherever there is lysine or other free amino group (practically every protein and peptide), carbon dioxide can be expected to react with it to some degree, which will depend on other things in the environment. Lysine also reacts with sugars, so there is a competition between CO2 and glucose. In aging and diabetes, many proteins are altered by the inappropriate binding to sugars. There are enzymes which can remove sugars that have altered proteins, but these enzymes are inhibited by the presence of small fragments of starch molecules.
>
> The absence of carbon dioxide bound to a protein is likely to have an effect on the protein's structure and function, but the presence of a relatively large sugar molecule, in a site normally occupied by carbon dioxide, will have drastic effects on the protein, including tending to solublize it, and to cause it to associate with its environment in other abnormal ways.

### Source 10 — Altitude and Mortality

Ray Peat · Article · 2006 · https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/altitude-mortality.shtml

> # Altitude and Mortality
>
> Breathing pure oxygen lowers the oxygen content of tissues; breathing rarefied air, or air with carbon dioxide, oxygenates and energizes the tissues; if this seems upside down, it's because medical physiology has been taught upside down. And respiratory physiology holds the key to the special functions of all the organs, and to many of their basic pathological changes.
>
> Stress, shock, inflammation, aging, and organ failure are, in important ways, respiratory problems.
>
> ## Definitions
>
> - **Haldane effect**: Oxygen displaces carbon dioxide from hemoglobin, in proportion to its partial (specific) pressure.
> - **Bohr effect**: Carbon dioxide (or acidity) displaces oxygen from hemoglobin.
> - **Lactic acidemia**: The presence of lactic acid in the blood.
> - **Alkalosis**: A pH of the blood above 7.4.
> - **Acidosis**: A blood pH below 7.4.
> - **Lactate paradox**: The reduced production of lactic acid at a given work rate at high altitude. Muscle work efficiency may be 50% greater at high altitude. ATP wastage is decreased.
>
> There are some popular medical ideas that obstruct clear thinking about respiration. One is that high altitude deprives you of oxygen, and is likely to be bad for people with heart disease and cancer. Another is that breathing pure oxygen helps sick people to oxygenate their tissues while exerting less effort in breathing. These are both exactly wrong, and the errors have been explored in quite a few publications, but the ideas persist in the culture to such a degree that our perceptions and intuitions have been misled, making closely related things seem to be unrelated.
>
> In this culture, it is hard to see that heart disease, cancer, and cataracts all involve a crucial respiratory defect, with the production of too much lactic acid and too little carbon dioxide, which leads to a “swelling pathology”: A pathological retention of water. The swollen heart beats poorly, the swollen lens turns milky, other cells divide rapidly as a result of swelling.
>
> People who live at very high altitudes live significantly longer; they have a lower incidence of cancer (Weinberg, et al., 1987) and heart disease (Mortimer, et al., 1977), and other degenerative conditions, than people who live near sea level.

### Source 11 — One Radio Network — Peat Ray (June 2022)

Ray Peat · Interview · Jun 20, 2022

> **Ray Peat:** Yeah. The slightly acidic cell, 6.8, pH is metabolically efficient. The inefficiency known as the Warburg effect involves a rising pH in which laxic acid is formed and acidifies the whole region. And so if you lower the pH, you suppress the formation of lactic acid, making your metabolism much more efficient. That's why it increases endurance.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Could that help thyroid if your metabolism is up?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Oh, yeah. It imitates what the thyroid is doing.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Interesting. Yeah, we had a Dr. Young, Robert O. Young on. He's a pH guy, and he recommended taking baking soda a couple times a day, just in general. He didn't say that the cells actually get more acid, though. He's always talking about how things are better alkaline, but it's interesting. I wonder how that would affect someone that would have cancer cells running around. Would that be good?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Oh, yeah, everyone pretty much has some cells that are very much like cancer cells in that they are stuck in the condition of inefficiency in which they're producing lactic acid rather than good energy.

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