The Heartburn & Acid Reflux Blog

Avoiding Heartburn Over the Holidays

There always seem to be a lot more fatty and sugary foods around the holidays than are good for you, and for some, they can lead to heartburn troubles.  According to a news article on "Avoiding Holiday Heartburn," foods full of fat and sugar can "trigger acid reflux because they weaken the esophageal sphincter. This muscle at the end of the esophagus acts as a one-way valve to the stomach. Normally, this muscle relaxes when you swallow to let food enter your stomach. It closes to prevent stomach acid from reentering the esophagus."  In addition, foods full of fat tend to sit in the stomach longer, which can contribute to acid reflux.

The answer is to simply eat in moderation and avoiding filling yourself to a level of discomfort.  Also make substitutions for fatty foods when possible (let veggies take up a large portion of your plate, with stuffing, fatty meats, butter, and calorie-laden sides being kept to small servings).  Just take a single small slice of pumpkin pie instead of 1/4 of the pie.  If you're having turkey, choose the light meat (very low in fat) over the dark meat.  Skip the second servings (you can always eat a small meal of leftovers later if you are hungry then).  And just because this is a holiday doesn't mean you shouldn't get some exercise.  A half hour walk after dinner can help food digest and stave off heartburn symptoms.

Nexium for Teenagers, Good Grief

A couple weeks ago, the FDA approved the use of AstraZeneca's Nexium delayed release capsules for teenagers (ages 12 to 17) for the short-term treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease.  Great, more people getting stuck on these drugs, when they should be looking at their lifestyles to see if eating habits, weight, food allergies/intolerances, etc. might be responsible for their GERD/acid reflux.  You can't help but think the drug companies are just so excited to get kids hooked on--and paying for--their stuff early (pills you could end up taking for a lifetime, since all they do is mask symptoms instead of treating the disease or figuring out what's casuing it...)  Gah. 

Source: AstraZeneca's Nexium approved for US teenagers

PillCam (pill-sized camera) Photographs Your GI System

The PillCam is one of the cooler tools I've seen for folks with acid reflux and other intestinal ailments.  The small device makes a journey through your GI system, taking pictures as it goes.  This is a way to look for physical signs of irritation and pre-cancerous conditions (it's a lot easier on the patient than the alternative--having a fiber optic tub shoved down your throat). Once swallowed, the PillCam sends 14 images per second to a battery-powered digital recorder.  The downside is that the multivitamin-sized camera costs $450 a pop, and some insurers won't cover it yet.

More information and pictures at "an easy-to-swallow-idea"

"Low-acid Coffee" for Acid Reflux Sufferers

Well, here's an interesting piece of news.  Apparently, there's a "low-acid" coffee coming out that's supposed to be better for your stomach than the regular stuff.  Sounds a bit wacky, but coffee is one of the things those heartburn books always tell you to give up (I'm one of those weird people who doesn't drive coffee anyway, so I never paid much attention... I only remember it because it was right under chocolate--something I do love and pay attention to--in the list of foods to avoid). 

"A coffee new to the supermarket shelves has been found by researchers to be over 50% lower in acid than other leading coffees, even those mass marketed as 'stomach-friendly.' This breakthrough effectively allows millions of Americans who've been advised to avoid coffee to once again enjoy the flavor, aroma and caffeine of authentic coffee."

The coffee is called Puroast.  Here's the original press release, if you're interested, and here's the site for the Puroast company.

Heartburn Linked to Esophageal Cancer

This is always comforting to read when you are a heartburn sufferer: "Heartburn, that almost quintessential American medical malady, appears to be driving the nation's fastest-increasing type of cancer... The cancer, a type of esophageal disease called adenocarcinoma, is relatively rare. However, incidence has jumped sixfold in the past 30 years."

That's the big fear, isn't it?  I mean, sure, heartburn/acid reflux is inconvenient, but in my case my life is still pretty normal.  It doesn't bother me in the day (though it can really torment me at night and affect my sleep), and I can almost forget about it a lot of the time.  But this fear is always in the back of my mind, that hey, this could lead to cancer if you don't do something about it...  It's bad enough I lived in an apartment under power lines for a year.  How often can your body be expected to beat the odds?  This is why I've started this blog and really want to do something about it.

Full article: Heartburn suspected in rise in cancer rate