3 Simple Steps to Eliminate Heartburn and Acid Reflux

Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Are millions of us born with a genetic defect that makes us produce too much stomach acid? Do we have a major evolutionary design flaw that requires us to take powerful acid blocking medication just to prevent heartburn and reflux? I believe that the answer to all these questions is a resounding no. In this week's blog, I'm going to explain why, but more importantly, I'm going to outline a simple three-step approach that will help you prevent acid reflux and heartburn by treating its underlying causes. Now, I'm going to tell you the truth about acid blocking medication. At least 10% of Americans have episodes of heartburn every day, and 44% have symptoms at least once a month. Overall Reflux, or GERD, affects a whopping 25 to 35% of the United States population. As a result, acid blocking medications are the third leading class of drugs sold in America today. Two of these drugs to treat reflux, Nexium and Prilosec, are in the top 10 best-selling drugs and account for $5.7 and $4 billion in sales annually. These things certainly have been changed since I was in medical school. In those days, GERD wasn't even considered a serious disease. It said people had heartburn or ulcers, but that was pretty much it. When acid blocking drugs first came on the market, even the pharmaceutical representatives warned us how powerful these drugs were. They told us not to prescribe them any longer than six weeks and only for patients with documented ulcers. What a difference a few decades make. Now these drugs are given like candy to anyone who ate too many hot dogs at a ball game, and one drug, Pirilosec, is now available without a prescription. No wonder these drugs are so popular. Their manufacturers have created the illusion that we can eat whatever we want with no consequences just by popping a pill. They even have commercials showing a family rushing up to stop their father from eating a big sausage with fried onions and peppers, and he tells them not to worry because he took this acid blocking pill. I know someone who used to work for the makers of Pepcid. He told me that when it was first available over the counter, teams of drug company representatives would stand at the gates of country fairs and southern barbecues and hand out free samples. Talk about sending a bad message. In reality, acid blocking drugs are a double edged sword. Let's look at some of the research on the dangers of these drugs. Acid blocking drugs obviously block acid that can cause symptoms of heartburn and reflux, but your body actually needs stomach acid to stay healthy. We know that stomach acid is necessary to digest protein in food, to activate your digestive enzymes in the small intestine, to keep the bacteria from growing where they shouldn't be in the small intestine, and to help you absorb important nutrients like calcium, magnesium and B12. So what happens when you take acid blocking drugs? Well there's evidence that these medications can prevent you from properly digesting your food, can cause vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and lead to problems like irritable bowel syndrome, depression, hip fractures and more. Studies show that people who take acid blocking medications for the long term can become deficient in vitamin B12, which can lead to depression, anemia, fatigue, nerve damage, even dementia, especially in the elderly. The research also tells us that taking these drugs can cause dangerous overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine called Clostridia, leading to life-threatening infections. For many more people, low-grade overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine leads to bloating, gas, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Many of the common side effects noted in the warning for these drugs. This can cause what we know as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. In fact, a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that chronic use of acid blocking drugs leads to an increase in the development of osteoporosis and an increase in hip fracture because acid blocking drugs prevent the absorption of calcium and other minerals necessary for bone health. Now, all this is only part of the problem. There have even been some reports that these drugs may increase the risk of certain cancers. These are serious problems and it's pretty clear that in this case the cure of acid blocking drugs is worse than the disease of reflux. But that's of little comfort when you're suffering from heartburn. So if the drugs aren't the answer, what is? We need to find the real causes of reflux and heartburn and get rid of them. We need to use the right food, nutrients and lifestyle therapies to heal the problem. So what causes GERD? Well, fried food, alcohol, caffeine, soda, all trigger reflux. Spicy, tomato-based, citrus foods can also cause problems for some people. Smoking increases the problem. Being overweight and having belly fat push your stomach up can prevent it from emptying, triggering reflux. Having a hiatal hernia, where your stomach pushes up through your diaphragm, can also cause trouble and be diagnosed by an x-ray. Eating large meals and eating before bed are two guaranteed ways to get reflux. But there are also other often overlooked causes. Food is supposed to go down, not up when you eat. That's why there are two main valves, the sphincters, that control food going in and out of the stomach. One at the top and one at the bottom. When you're stressed, the valve on top relaxes and the valve on the bottom tightens up. The result? Food goes up, not down, so stress also contributes to reflux. Magnesium deficiency is another cause of reflux because magnesium helps the sphincter at the bottom of the stomach relax allowing the food to go down. Now while this is controversial, I believe that infection can not only cause just ulcers but reflux as well. The bug that causes this infection is called H. Pylori and can be identified by a simple blood test. It needs to be treated even if you don't have an ulcer, I believe. Food sensitivities or low-grade allergies can also cause reflux. Common culprits include dairy and gluten containing foods like wheat, barley, rye and oats. plus overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine bowel or the yeast overgrowth in the gut can cause reflux. These are all treatable conditions that you don't need powerful acid blocking drugs to fix. To properly diagnose the causes you may need to do the following: 1. Ask your doctor for an H. Pylori blood antibody test. 2. Consider getting an IgG food sensitivity test and a test for celiac disease. 3. Get a breath test or urine test to check for small bowel bacterial overgrowth. Now if you don't get better with the suggestions below, consider getting an upper endoscopy or upper GI series x-ray to see if there's anything else wrong in there. Now I'm going to give you three steps that can help you permanently overcome heartburn and acid reflux. First, treat the bugs if you have them. If you have H. Pylori, treat it. If you have yeast overgrowth, treat it. If you have bacterial overgrowth in the small bowel, treat it. The second step is change your diet. Try to eliminate gluten and dairy for a few weeks, see if it makes a difference. Get rid of alcohol, citrus, caffeine, tomato based and spicy foods. Don't eat three hours before bed, don't eat junk food, don't eat processed food, and eat cooked foods like fish, chicken, cooked veggies and avoid raw foods for a short while and see if it makes a difference. Eat smaller, more frequent meals at least four or five times a day. And the last step is to try some natural remedies to help soothe the gut. you can use digestive enzymes, you can use probiotics, you can use something called zinc carnosine, you can use glutamine, even chewable tablets of a form of licorice called DGL, as well as magnesium. So as you can see, there's no need to suffer from heartburn and reflux or take expensive acid blocking drugs. Just deal with the cause. That's the whole purpose of functional medicine. [Foreign].