Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Ask Mark Anything: Silent Reflux, Stomach Acid, Radiation, And More

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Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Ask Mark Anything. My name is Herschel Firth and I'm the Dr. Hyman Plus Community Manager. and I'm joined by Darcy Gross. Hi, Darcy.

Hi.

She's the producer of the Longevity Roadmap docu-series. And of course, we're here with Dr. Hyman. Hi, Dr. Hyman.

Hi.

How are you?

Good. So we've collected all your questions this month and we're ready to ask Mark anything. So, Darcy, if you'd like to get us started, that would be so great.

I will get us started. Hi, Dr. Hyman. Good to see you again.

Hi.

Awesome. So we're going to jump right in. So the first question has to do with something called LPR or silent reflux, otherwise known as laryngopharyngeal reflux. So if you could kind of answer exactly what that is and the functional medicine approach, that would be great.

Well, that's a really good job pronouncing that very difficult word. But essentially it's like heartburn, but it goes up in your throat. So our reflux and essentially there's reflux that can come up sort of part way. There's reflux that can go all the way up and that can cause cough, it can cause sore throats, it can cause all kinds of symptoms. So the bigger question is like, how do we address reflux from a functional medicine perspective? And I actually wrote a textbook chapter on it for a medical textbook years ago. And there's so much we know about how to treat this. Now, most of the doctors in this country are using a medication called the PPI or proton pump inhibitor like Prilosec, protonix, acid effects, Nexium and so forth. There are also older versions called H2 blockers, which are Tagamet and Zantac, which are over the counter as well. Those are a little bit different mechanism, but they also help with reflux and block the acid. The problem is if you take these drugs in the short term, they're fine. If you take them for a long period of time, you will really cause a lot of significant problems. You'll develop bacterial overgrowth in your gut, yeast overgrowth, you change the pH in your gut. You need the acid down there to regulate the biome. You also cause significant mineral absorption, magnesium, zinc and calcium, you end up with osteoporosis. It can cause pneumonia because of how it affects your immune system. And also it can lead to significant B12 deficiencies. So it's really quite a problem. And I think people don't understand how bad it can be by taking these drugs long term because they do help with one symptom, but they cause a whole host of downstream problems. So the question is, again, from a functional medicine perspective, is what is the cause? Right? No, oh, you have reflux, take the reflux pill. It's, no, figure out why. And the typical things, you know, the doctors will say are, well, you know, it could be because You have a hiatal hernia that could be maybe need to be fixed or you have some, which means your diaphragm and your stomach is popping up through your diaphragm and ending up in your chest. So that sometimes can be fixable for various techniques, even surgery if needed. So those are the more extreme cases. It can be caused by bacteria called H. pylori or Helicobacter pylori. We think of that more as causing ulcers, but there's a subset of people who do have reflux and that may be an antibiotic treatment or herbal treatments for a period of weeks. So that's really important. That can be tested for with a breath test or a stool test. blood tests all can be helpful in checking that as well. Then there's the other dietary factors. Doing fried foods, doing spicy foods, doing tomato-based foods, citrus-based foods, alcohol, caffeine, smoking, all of these things will actually cause reflux. Those are the easy things to take off the table. Sometimes it's because you're overweight and your stomach is pushing everything up. Being overweight is a big risk factor as well as saying we'll just have sort of anatomical reasons. and sometimes lifting the head of the bed up a little bit or putting pillows up can be helpful as well. But from my perspective, it's often other things that can be not just those dietary factors, not just Helicobacter pylori or overweight, but it can also be because people have food sensitivities and they often don't think of them as causing reflux, but they can. For example, it can be caused by gluten or dairy, other food sensitivities. It can be caused by trouble with the sphincter in the bottom of your stomach, we call the lower esophageal sphincter or the pyloric sphincter, those can be malfunctioning and that can be often magnesium deficiency. So low magnesium can be a factor. So magnesium as well may help. Then there are other things that can help sort of with in addition to the using those strategies that can help soothe the stomach and you don't have to take antacids, you don't have to take the, the, the, the, the medications, but, or even like the liquid stuff like mail locks or, or gavison and those things, which can be helpful. But they're, again, they're not long-term strategies. So I, and I use a cocktail of things that's a combination of glutamine, which is a lot of research on it around glutamine and allicin, we call DGL or deglycerized licorice. So instead of Tums, you can take this form of licorice called deglycerized licorice, which kind of removes the component of it that tends to cause high blood pressure and actually can help with coating and soothing the stomach. And that can be done as chewable tablets. I also combine it in powder. It's called Glutagenics, which is from metagenics. So it's essentially gluten, it's glutamine, aloe, and licorice. And that can be very, very helpful. There's also something called Zinc Carnosine, which is a great product that can help with the zinc product. It can help with reflux as well. So it's really an individual thing. And looking at each individual, I sort of figure out what their issues are, whether it's diet, whether it's nutritional deficiency, whether it's H. Pylori, whether it's weight issues, whether it's, you know, other bad habits that they're having. So just looking at all that can be really helpful. Yeah. And by the way, I've written lots of articles about it. So they can, they can link to the articles that are on drhyman.com about reflux and just more in depth about.

How to deal with it. Yeah, for sure. And thank you for all that information. I have a quick follow-up question, which is, I feel like there's this idea that heartburn or reflux or anything is caused by too much stomach acid, but I've also heard just in the wellness community that it could also be caused by too little acid. Is that true? Can taking apple cider vinegar really help to mitigate some of that acid levels?

Yeah, so yeah, good point. So there, you know, especially as people get older, there's a phenomena called hyperglorhydria or low stomach acid that can happen as their stomach atrophy as we age and that can be problematic. And so we do sometimes give people what we call HCL or betaine HCL, which is giving people stomach acid and that can often be helpful if they have mal digestion, bloating, So it's a clinical diagnosis. They also can do look for stomach acid. There's various kinds of sophisticated testing for pHs and so forth. But you know, that's a more sophisticated diagnosis and conversation. But again, you know, sometimes giving people, if all the other stuff doesn't work, you can sometimes actually give people a stomach acid and it will, believe it or not, and enzymes. Also, you know, it's important that people just, understand that this isn't something they should have to live with and that if you're on an acid blocking medication like a PPI, they're designed in a way to be addictive. As soon as you stop, you're going to get rebound hyper acid. All of a sudden it's like keeping long and just sort of bounces back and that's really causes symptoms of more reflux, more heartburn. Yeah, I need it. I can't stop it. Well, of course that's the way the drugs are designed in a way. So the key is you have to taper them down really slowly so you cut the in half, then you do every other day for, you know, maybe a week and then every third day for a week and then sort of slowly sort of come off it. But it's something you can't just stop like that because you'll often get worse.

Yeah, that's super helpful because I've heard that a lot where someone's like, I really want to stop this, but every time I do it gets worse. So I think that advice is super helpful. So thank you. And we'll head it over to Herschel for the next question.

So, the next question is about a functional medicine practitioner. Obviously, we know the IFM site has a list of functional medicine practitioners all over the world, but let's say you live in an area where there isn't a practitioner or maybe you can't afford to go to a functional medicine practitioner in your area. What do you recommend for someone in that situation? Well, what I would say is, I've.

Written a guide years ago, it's called How to Work with Their Doctor to Get what yout Need. It was based on initially the UltraMind Solution, and we just created a guide, and you can just Google it. I think, or it's on our website. Maybe you can put the link to it in the show notes. And in there, I talk about how do you assess each of the functional medicine areas using different kind of diagnostic tests. And in there, I also talk about what is available through conventional labs that your insurance will cover that you can do from your regular doctor. And there's a lot you can learn about your hormones, about your gut, about your, about toxin levels, about your your nutritional status about so many things that we look at and they're important to look at. And I think we often think we need these super fancy specialist tests, but many things you can look at just with regular lab tests. And so that's the place to start. Now, the problem is going to be your doctor is going to have to get on board. He or she is going to have to go, okay, I'm willing to do these and order these tests. If they're not, Our companies now, one of them I'm starting to advise called Function Health. It's not out yet, but it's called Function Health. And it's essentially a lab company where they'll, you can order your own labs essentially. So they've got a system of doctors under the country and you can go in and pick based on what you, what you need or what you want the right lab test for you. And it's, it's super, it's super important for us to understand that we can actually modify our own lifestyle and our habits in order to accommodate our particular unique needs. And sometimes that requires testing. So there are also other companies out there that allow you to sort of order tests on your own. I can't remember the name of them now, but they're out there. And so you can become more autonomous around your health and get the diagnostic done, but then you have to know how to interpret it. So the guide that I provided was a guide of what tests are the common ones to do. and then also what you need to do once you get the test, how you interpret them and what they mean. So that can be really helpful. I'd encourage you to check that out. And that doesn't have to be something that's expensive. It can be done through your insurance. So that's where I would start. Now, if you don't have a functional medicine doctor, there are online services. A lot of doctors have gone virtual. So even if there's not somewhere you live, I'm sure you can find a doctor who does a virtual consult with you. We do that at the UltraWellness Center, although we're a little overbooked, unfortunately. But I think we really are are seeing that more and more people are open, even conventional doctors. So you can also find a conventional doctor who might be willing to learn who's on board, who doesn't know the functional medicine that well, or maybe not have heard of it, but who's willing to really work with you as a partner. And I think that's important. We need to find doctors who are saying, look, I want to check my vitamin D, or I want to check my red cell magnesium. I want to check my serum homocysteine or whatever it is, then, yes, they'll be willing to do it. And say, no, that's waste.

No, we don't need to do it.

You can.

And so I think it's important to make sure you find a doctor who.

Works as a partner with you.

Yeah, that definitely makes a lot of sense. And we will link to that book that you wrote about the how to work with your doctor, just in case anybody hasn't seen it. I know that's a very popular question that we get asked quite a bit. And in fact, a lot of people are always looking for that book to kind of pass it on to their doctor to see what tests they can take. So, Darcy, over to you for the next question.

Yeah.

Thank you. So the next question is, how does somebody help their body recover from cumulative radiation? So whether it's from getting x-rays or mammograms or just travel, since we all know that traveling via air has some level of radiation or whether it be cancer treatment, what can we do just to help recover?

Yeah, I think that's a tough one. I think radiation is ubiquitous. You take a plane from New York to LA, it's like getting a chest x-ray, right? And in terms of the radiation you're exposed to at that height or that altitude. And we all get various x-rays for teeth and for various things that happen to us over our lifetimes. And I've had certainly my share of x-rays in my back and various things in the lungs. You want to keep them to a minimum. Obviously, it's a cumulative dose. It's hard to really say what the best way to deal with it is, but radiation causes oxidative stress and inflammation. So whatever you can do to mitigate that is great. So an anti-inflammatory diet, lots of antioxidants in your diet, by taking the right antioxyd supplements all can be really helpful, but I don't think there's sort of any magic way to undo any of the damage. It's just making sure you keep your system healthy and functional. I like ozone therapy because it just creates this massive shift in your system towards an antioxidant anti-inflammatory system. And so I like to do that, but I don't think there's a lot.

Of data on that. Yeah, for sure. And I'm pretty sure you just got off a plane recently, so we're kind.

Of learning from the master himself. I don't know about that. Probably if you just live in a cave somewhere in the mountains if you really want to avoid all this stuff, but we live in the world we live in.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that teaser of exclusive content that you get every single month with Dr. Hyman Plus. If you want to listen to the full episode and get access to ad-free podcast episodes, Plus, Ask Mark Anything episodes, plus monthly functional deep dive episodes. I guess that's why we call it Dr. Hyman Plus. Then head on over to the Doctor's Pharmacy on Apple Podcast and sign up for your seven day free trial.

Hi everyone. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.