Do You Have Acid Reflux Disease?

DO YOU HAVE ACID REFLUX DISEASE?

This is the television mantra designed to scare the be-jesus out of you. It will send many folks scurrying to their doctor for a lifetime of prescription medication that ignores the cause of the problem, causes all kinds of side effects, and turns you into a cash cow for the health care industry.

Disease or Symptom?

Acid reflux disease is a symptom, not a disease. It occurs when stomach contents and acids are splashed up through the hiatus or sphincter that separates your stomach from you esophagus. It is caused by abominable foods and combinations thereof, a weakened or herniated sphincter (hiatus) muscle, inadequate fluid content in the stomach, inadequate acid and enzyme production in the stomach, any combination of these, or in one-in-a million case, an overproduction of stomach acid.

The greatest majority of acid reflux cases are caused by a combination of abominable foods and a hiatal hernia or weakness. Over the years, eating a poor diet and amazingly unhealthy foods deteriorate your body’s ability to produce adequate acids and enzymes in the stomach. This adds to the problem, producing a stomach over-stuffed with foods that does not digest properly.

Since food will not pass out of the stomach into the small intestine until it is properly digested and has reached a certain acidic level, people with this problem will routinely be stuffed with semi-digested foods in the stomach, which ferment and produce acids and gases of fermentation. This noxious combination will often remain in the stomach for hours on end, burning and projecting upwards because of gas and bloating.

As this mash goes through the sphincter into the esophagus, it burns the lining, producing many symptoms, including gas, bloating, heartburn, nausea, and more. This is what the medical profession is now calling acid reflux disease. Their answer? A drug to sop up the acids of indigestion, and in some cases to even disrupt and stop your own production of digestive acids (which are probably already inadequate). This will provide instant relief by neutralizing all acids. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is about as much a proper treatment for this syndrome as acid reflux is a true disease.

Cure and Prevention

Actually, the cure involves eating less, combining foods more properly, eliminating gluten, sugar, soy, and dairy, treating a weakened hiatus or sphincter with hands-on therapy, and using digestive enzymes on a temporary basis. The startling fact about this whole money-making scheme is that for the majority of acid reflux patients, the problem is not too much acid-rather it is too little digestive acids.

When acids of digestion are inadequate, food ferments rather than digests. The fermentation produces acids (which are assumed to be digestive acids) which are then mopped-up by drugs-not a treatment of cause, but an effective, lifetime moneymaker for the drug industry. Yet these drugs are not harmless. Many people get so sick they simply cannot continue to take them. Still others feel temporarily better, but their hampered digestion will result in more serious problems later on-like osteoporosis and heart disease.

So next time you hear about acid reflux disease, remember that it is only a disease in the minds of those people who will profit most from your naiveté. Treat the cause of the problem and the disease will miraculously vanish. In most cases better diet, less food per meal, two to three Zypan tablets from Standard Process per meal, and hands-on therapy to the diaphragm sphincter (hiatus) will most often resolve the problem.