Consider Low-Carb Eating Instead of Drugs for Your GERD

It’s easier to pop a pill than change your diet, especially if someone else is paying for the pills

Dr. Michael Eades has a recent post on gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and it’s treatment with carbohydrate-restricted eating versus drugs. A quote:

Most people who have GERD, have it for the long term. It’s not something that comes and goes. So these folks go on GERD therapy for the long term, and the most prescribed medications for long-term GERD treatment are PPIs [proton pump inhibitors], which, you now know, keep stomach acid neutralized for the long term, and, as you might imagine, creates a host of problems.

The scientific literature has shown long-term PPI therapy to be related to the following conditions:

• Anemia
• Pneumonia
• Vitamin B12 deficiency
• Impaired calcium absorption
• Impaired magnesium absorption
• Increased rate fractures, especially hip, wrist and spine
• Osteopenia [thin brittle bones]
• Rebound effect of extra-heavy gastric acid secretion
• Heart attacks

Read the rest if you or someone you love has GERD. Acid-reducing Nexium is the second most-prescribed drug (by sales) in the U.S. We have stomach acid for a reason. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature eliminating it.

Here’s a scientific report supporting Dr. Eades’ clinical experience that carbohydrate restriction helps with GERD. Carbs were reduced to 20 grams a day.

Steve Parker, M.D.