20% Of Americans Suffer From Acid Reflux, What Should They Do?

I have an article from the Chicago Tribune President Obama may have joked with reporters when they asked how his throat was feeling after he was diagnosed with acid reflux but acid reflux can be a serious health threat up to 20 percent of Americans suffer from typical symptoms of gastro esophageal reflux two times per week says Gilbert’s ammonia gastroenterologist in Thousand Oaks for most of these people the fiery sensation of heartburn is a painful nuisance for an unlucky few however persistent acid reflux can lead to a deadly cancer of the esophagus could you each of you tell me what the research says

well most people have heartburn or acid reflux at one time or another in their life often from some overindulgence in something but there there are a group of people who are the valve at the bottom of the esophagus which is supposed to be more or less one-way valve doesn’t work and they really do regurgitate stomach acid and digestive enzymes and and bile and we used to used to when I was practicing regularly we were screening people who had heartburn frequently enough that they took a medication twice a week or more we were screening them for Barrett’s esophagus named after dr. Barrett who discovered this change in the lining people actually grew a lining from their stomach the stomach lining actually grew up into the esophagus to the level of the reflux so he sort of had this backsplash area and it would take on a new lining that was used to I guess used to acid like the stomach line and and a new lining in a place that does not belong is very unstable and and there’s the risks and of developing carcinoma of the esophagus in this displaced gastric lining so we would check people regularly for this and I remember the the treatment of putting people’s Bed Head legs up on blocks so that they would be at a slant and the the acid would tend to stay down in the stomach when they lie down and and then we have these powerful proton pump inhibitors that would actually block acid production for 24 hours at a time and and that made a huge difference in the amount of complaints that we heard and in the amount of ulcers that we found in the esophagus but blocking ones acid is not a good idea and so maybe some other people would like to talk about that

oh yeah Helicobacter pylori infection is a overgrowth of bacteria in the stomach lining that actually can can cause ulcers it’s actually one of the main causes of ulcers when I was in gastroenterology training in New Haven in the 70s I was a control patient in a study looking at du tinnitus and whether x-rays could show this inflamed duodenum or whether could only show ulcers and so on and then later in practice I developed an ulcer and the the biopsy showed a huge infection with Helicobacter pylori infection and so we looked back at the biopsies from the control patients 10 years earlier in my training period and it was loaded with Helicobacter pylori but no one knew of its significance at the time and so when I started in practice I scoffed at the old practitioners that were treating ulcers with with milk and cream every few hours because I knew how to use tagamet and prilosec and all these wonder drugs and I didn’t understand why they looked at me sort of tongue-in-cheek that I was so enthusiastic about my new therapies and then when we realized that h pylori was causing the ulcers then i understood you don’t yes yes and so when new things come out the one who most recently graduated is the most excited about it and the old guys have seen and gals have seen things come and and not be so good or something else is involved so we have to give time to some of these things until we know what’s happening but the relationship between h pylori and reflux esophagitis is is hard is hard to understand h pylori in some settings protects people from reflux esophagitis and you kill off the h pylori so you don’t get the ulcers and then the reflux is worse and the thing that I want someone else on the panel to explain is why some of the symptoms that I treated for years as if it was the enemy with acid was the enemy now we’re finding out that some of those symptoms are caused by not enough acid and so we’ll see what the panel does with that I’m gonna pass this on to the others but I did want to say one thing that’s just kind of interesting I read a study once that that looked at broccoli sprouts as something that could kill off h pylori or prevent no it was it was actually killing off the Helicobacter and and they found that the broccoli sprouts were more effective than some of the most potent drugs that that they pitted it against in this study very very interesting

broccoli sprouts produce probably fifty to a hundred times more sulforaphane than mature broccoli and this has some pretty profound effects on bad bacteria but anyway just I’ll pass it on

well I just want to concur with the idea that cruciferous vegetables inhibit the growth of h pylori and increase the resistance of the stomach to ask that and help restore the viability and health of the cells that lands in esters in other words let me say that one more time that there’s a compound called ITC or isothiocyanates and is about a hundred different isothiocyanates that are produced when you eat different types of green vegetables now the enzyme that makes the isothiocyanates is called myrosinase and my roast knight is heat sensitive so when you cook your broccoli your Brussels sprouts and then you chew it you’re not gonna form any of those protective compounds because the see the green vegetable plant cell has a compound called glucosinolate inside the vegetable and the moroseness enzyme changes little Klassen oil into the isothiocyanate and that occurs in the mouth as you’re shooing the vegetable and the isothiocyanate easing is not heat sensitive but the Myro sanae’s enzyme is when you cook the cruciferous vegetable you disturb you don’t get as many ITC’s formed so it’s the regular consumption that every day almost every day consumption of raw greens raw cruciferous vegetables broccoli sprouts kale collards bok choy arugula watercress raw in your diet chewed well in the mouth and it’s with a salad that the better you chew them the more ITC’s that are formed now you could get some ITC formation from your cooked Brussels sprouts and cooked broccoli because the my roast nice enzyme that you got from eating the raw the raw vegetables could be utilized by the body to create some more ITC’s from the cooked vegetables that you ate but you still have to eat some of those raw vegetables to get to my roast nice enzyme to activate the cooked vegetables

the point I’m making is that intellectually and you know put some shredded red cabbage on your salad put some green cabbage or say if it’s a boy put some kale put some bok choy put some arugula put watercress and intentionally put these green vegetables and chew them up very well as part of your salad don’t just eat straight lettuce and then obviously the better you chew your salad the more you produce so I’m suggesting that the that the overgrowth of h pylori is a nutritional problem immune system suppression it shouldn’t happen in people that have really strong immune systems eating a healthy diet and an anise and also the protective production of protective mucus mucosal line the ability of the cells to repair themselves because they we have a lot of sloughing of cells and destruction of the digestive lining with normal digestion that those cells have to replicate and repair themselves all the time and that cell repair replenishment of the cells and replenishment of mucous is all has to do with the quality of your diet – and of course I know you’re gonna bring up stress and other issues and sleep and other things that play a role but the point is is that we’re not out of we have control over this condition and that you know eat the American diet with all the high protein foods that demands so much extra acid and the processed foods and that and the things that close off the the elimination of food in other movies keep food in our digestive tract and our stomach so long the acid floats around there forever then you then you gonna have you know hemorrhoids diverticulum reflux and you have to live close to a good hospital and look at a lot to make sure you’re friendly with all the physicians there and take a lot of drugs that’s an oxymoron close to a good Hospital

this is certainly a modern disease like dr. Fuhrman just said it was considered when I was a boy of blue collar concern my grandfather who was a painter he used to paint bridges going from New York to New Jersey and one part of New York to the other when I smell Rolaids which is an anti acid I become sentimental he was my good buddy and you didn’t see the middle and upper middle class with these problems but ironically everyone got into the trap and the trap is eating foods that we ought not to consume and of course animal-based foods are their process chemicalized pesticide fungicide riddled foods genetically modified foods are the number one I’m sure you listen closely on the panel last night where Jeffrey actually probably quoted a Monsanto study that before they put Roundup on the market they actually proved in their own study that it preffer ate at the intestines of the animals and this site and sign free Senna excuse me out of MIT just reconfirmed with autism remember I spoke about autism the other day and she’s showing that the gastrointestinal problem and there’s a pathway that shuts down and it’s because of what that roundup does it’s spliced into high fructose corn syrup

the other thing I’d like to say about this is that I see it correctable in the vast majority of cases everything we said we don’t have to repeat eating a good diet I would say more so raw there’s very little benefit when you cook a cruciferous vegetable I got that from the horse’s mouth the number one epicenter of phytochemical research Oregon State University where it’s where Linus Pauling’s alma mater was and after his death they moved it from Palo Alto up there I know the privilege to spend a half a day with the researchers and I asked them something interesting because I’m acutely interested in phytochemicals because it gave us the answer of why the Hippocrates Program has been so incredibly helpful in people’s conquest of disorders and fighting disease and staying young and I said you know when you’re studying do you know see notice a difference between when you’re looking at a raw material and it’s cooked they have said it scener 20 you report that and they said absolutely not I said why wouldn’t you report that they said it’s not warranted in the in the research they’re not asking us to report if something’s active or not they want to identify and name a phytochemical and the food isn’t that interesting so that’s how science works you know they’re on one page and they don’t see its blinders on them but everything that was said here by everyone was completely correct with the so for feign that you get in the cabbage family onion sprouts are higher than anything in it garlic sprouts you can just take garlic raw garlic Organic of course because most of it’s irradiated if it’s not raw put that into a little container in your kitchen window and grow it neat the greens delicious by the way too

the other thing is fenugreek sprout juice has been incredibly effective raw aloe has been effective we actually suggest anal implantation of some of this when you have problems h pylori can be helped I don’t think it can be corrected when it’s large enough just by broccoli sprouts alone it may be more preventive but what I’ve seen is in all the years we’ve used massive amounts of broccoli sprouts usually it returns so either you go the mainstream way where doctor gives you a short-term antibiotic which works in 99% of the cases or a more natural way you’d go to an herbal with the doctor who knows what she or he’s doing with this but this is a big issue because esophageal cancer is a nasty cancer and a high percentage of people that have consistent Auto reflux end up with that cancer or by the way they don’t talk about other forms of cancer stomach cancer much colon cancer much higher levels of it and I wouldn’t doubt if other forms of cancer that maybe we’re not aware of today are part and parcel to it

we have lots of people over the course of time when they’re working on their health that want to get off of an acid suppression medication such as the purple pill that’s a bit hard to do because it suppresses acid to such a degree that when you stop it there’s a surge of acid convincing you in a very experienced all way that you must go back on it and stay on it and the pharmaceutical companies literature does not tell people what the helpful way is to get off the product that might be very helpful in who might want to try it but to get people off of a acid blocking agent that works for 24 to 36 hours we tell people that there’s going to be an acid surge you need to expect that and we give you a substitute like a pepcid or a zantac that has an acid suppressing time period of 6 to 12 hours and to use those only when absolutely necessary while they’re coming off

now this lady whose story you heard earlier today when dr. Diehl was talking who had 16 diseases one of which was heartburn and acid indigestion and irritable battle and all kinds of things she felt better right away in two weeks on the on the therapeutic lifestyle change program but it was a little bit hard for her to give up the acid suppression medication and so it needed to be tapered and going to kind of like coming off cigarettes and going to a lower a lower nicotine a cigarette still the same number of cigarettes but about less and less tapering off the the addictive component so that’s something to keep in mind that you you you you have to work your way off of an h2 blocker

wanted one addendum to this is the purple pill people don’t have the advantage to see a physician anymore that’s gone over the counter now so unless you’re a diligent research scientist who’s taking the purple pill you probably won’t get the advice and this is really smart and good advice so you’re taking it and you’re gonna have surges and it’s a perpetuation of it