Share Your Experience: What Foods Are Your Biggest Heartburn Trigger?
You may need to avoid certain foods if you suffer from heartburn. What foods are your biggest heartburn trigger? How do you cope with food triggers? Any handy tips or food substitutions? Share your experience with others!
Share Your Tips: How do you deal with heartburn during special occasions, such as the holidays?
If you suffer from frequent heartburn, you know that it often makes an appearance at special occasions, such as during the holidays. To help prevent heartburn from occurring, you can try these tips. Do you have some tips for preventing heartburn during the holidays, at parties, at family gatherings? Share your tips here.
Preventing Heartburn at Holiday Parties
The holidays are filled with feasts and festivities -- and sometimes heartburn, too. Here's how to avoid holiday heartburn.
During the holidays, and anytime during the year, it's important to avoid the foods that can cause heartburn, learn how to prevent nighttime heartburn, and follow other methods of preventing heartburn each day. And while this season is joyful, it can also be stressful. While stress doesn't directly cause heartburn, it can have an affect, so learn about heartburn and stress and how to relax.
New Study Shows Muscle Infusion May Help GERD Patients
A new study published in the December 2009 issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, shows that muscle cells that were grown in the lab were able to restore intestinal sphincters ability to squeeze shut properly. While this procedure was done on dogs and rats, researchers hope that it might eventually be used in humans to treat patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
This infusion technique would be used to help strengthen sphincter muscles. These sphincters are muscles that form a ring that can contract to close an opening to separate major sections along the digestive tract. The sphincter that is of most concern to GERD patients is the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), since a weakness in the LES can allow stomach contents to reflux back into the esophagus.
Dr Pankaj Pasricha, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Stanford and lead author of the study, said, "After injecting muscle cells in that area of weakness, those muscle cells thrive and get integrated into the existing tissues, and then add to the strength of the sphincter."
The study involved the isolation and growth of skeletal muscle cells from the hind legs of animals in the lab and implantation of these cells into the sphincter of another animal. After four weeks, the researchers examined the sphincters to determine if the cultured cells, which were marked with a dye, had survived, integrated and become functional. Skeletal muscle cells were injected into the lower esophageal sphincter of each of the three dogs. When analized after three weeks, the sphincter pressure had doubled. No abnormalities were found in the esophagus, confirming that the cells had successfully integrated into the sphincter.
More research and testing need to be done before this becomes a viable therapy for GERD patients, but if it is found to be effective, it could prove to be a less invasive treatment than surgery.
For more information, you can see the abstract of this study.
Holiday Tips for Children with GERD
Despite the delights holiday feasts can bring, for many children with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), this may not be a happy dining experience for them. Avoiding foods that can trigger heartburn symptoms is important for the management of pediatric GERD, but it can be difficult because of the many rich traditional holiday foods served. Parents can still make holiday dining enjoyable for their children with these heartburn-prevention tips.
Preventing Holiday Heartburn
- Avoid Foods That Can Trigger Heartburn
If you aren't sure what foods can trigger your heartburn, try keeping a heartburn record for a week or two, and write down what you eat and indicate which foods cause heartburn symptoms and which don't. - Don't Overeat
A too full stomach increases the chances of heartburn. - Avoid Lying Down After Eating
Laying down within two to three hours after a meal increases your risk of having heartburn. - Watch Your Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol increases the amount of acid the stomach produces, and relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter (LES). - Chew Gum
Chewing gum increases the production of saliva. This saliva can relieve heartburn by bathing the esophagus and lessening the effects of acid refluxed into the esophagus by washing it back down to the stomach. - Take an Antacid or H2 Blocker
Taking an antacid, such as Tums or Mylanta, can neutralize existing acid to provide short-term relief. A H2 receptor blockers, such as Pepcid AC or Zantac 75, reduces acid production.
Children and GERD
GERD isn't just an adult's disease. I was diagnosed with GERD when I was in my 30's. My grandson was diagnosed with GERD when he was 6 months old.
Because children and infants can also have GERD, it's important to know know what symptoms to look for:
Many times child's doctor may base a diagnosis of acid reflux on your child's symptoms, medical history, and a physical examination. Sometimes, however, diagnostic tests are needed:
Once a diagnosis has been made, treatment will begin. The age of your child will determine what course of treatment is used:
The Basics of GERD
GERD occurs when the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) does not close properly and stomach contents reflux back up into the esophagus.
Heartburn and acid regurgitation are the main symptoms of GERD, though some people with GERD don't experience any heartburn episodes. This is why it's important to know all the possible symptoms of GERD.
While the majority of doctors will prescribe a trial of acid-suppressive therapy, and make a diagnosis based on the patient's response to this, there are tests to diagnose GERD a doctor may want to have performed.
Treatment for GERD will usually start with certain lifestyle modifications and dietary changes. If you continue to have symptoms after these modifications, your physician will discuss with you the use of antacids, H2 blockers, and Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs). If your physician and you decide a surgical option is needed, the most common surgical treatment for GERD is the fundoplications surgery. Another procedure sometimes used in the treatment of GERD is the radiofrequency treatment.
GERD May Be an Autoimmune Disorder
Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) may not develop as a direct result of acid reflux into the esophagus as previously thought, but may instead be an autoimmune disorder.
In a new animal study performed at UT Southwestern Medical Center, it appears the acid reflux triggers the esophagus to release chemicals called cytokines, which in turn attract inflammatory cells to the esophagus.It is these inflammatory cells that cause the characteristic esophageal damage of GERD. The symptoms of this inflammatory include heartburn.
The study was performed on rats, and involved connecting the first part of the small intestine (duodenum) directly to the esophagus. This operation would allow stomach acid and bile to enter the esophagus of the rats, in a situation similar to acid reflux in people. The results were not as expected.
Soon after the operation, the researchers expected to see the death of surface cells of the esophagus, and they expected to see the injury progress later to the deeper layers. Instead, they found the opposite. Three days after the surgery, there was no damage to surface cells, but the researchers did find inflammatory cells in the deeper layers of the esophagus. Those inflammatory cells didn't rise to the surface layer until three weeks after the initial acid exposure.
"That doesn't make sense if GERD is really the result of an acid burn, as we all were taught in medical school," said Dr. Stuart Spechler, professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study. "Chemical injuries develop immediately. If you spill battery acid on your hand, you don't have to wait a month to see the damage."
Dr. Souza, staff physician at the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center and part of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern, noted, "In animal models of reflux esophagitis designed to mimic the human disease, researchers hadn't looked at the early events in the development of esophageal injury. Most of those investigators have been interested in the long-term consequences of GERD, and we found virtually no published data about what happens later that induces gastroesophageal reflux."
The next step for researchers is to conduct additional studies in humans.
The study was supported by the Dallas VA Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health, and appears in the November issue of Gastroenterology.
Before You Eat Out
You can eat out without fear of heartburn if you know what to ask for and what you should avoid. When you ask how the food is prepared, avoid certain beverages, and watch portion sizes, you can prevent the heartburn.
Dining out at Chinese, Mexican, or Italian restaurants may be more difficult, since food at these restaurants may contain more ingredients that can trigger your heartburn. It is possible to enjoy dining there if you know what to avoid.
You can read more about the suggested do's and don'ts when eating out by reading Before You Eat Out.
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