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Hundreds of millions of Americans are putting their health at risk and they don’t even know it.
1 in 2 of us suffers from acid reflux, heartburn, or GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease), and of those, most use over-the-counter drugs regularly to treat their symptoms.
Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drugs in particular – the most popular of the types of reflux drugs – generate an estimated $10 BILLION in sales each year!
But these drugs do FAR more harm than good. They are only masking your symptoms (and maybe at that), while the TRUE CAUSE is raging, and if you don’t pay attention to what I’m going to say, it MAY take you out!
In fact, they can substantially increase the chances of an early death, according to research that I’ll outline below.
Even scarier, reflux is the #1 risk factor for esophageal cancers – and the risk increases the longer you suffer from reflux – so you don’t want to sit idly by and let this happen. Sadly, this is something that I am far too familiar with, and not by choice.
This August 15th will be 2 years that we lost my father to a hard-fought battle to esophageal cancer, which all stemmed from reflux, which he never knew he had!
It was never diagnosed by all the doctors he saw over the years – there was always the dry cough and burn, and I have to live with this hindsight every day…IF I only knew THEN, what I knew NOW, my dad may still be here with us…
My last words and VOW to my father before he died, was this –
The last thing I told him was that I would make it my life’s mission to do whatever I can with the information I’ve learned to prevent as many people as possible from suffering as he did—no matter what it takes.
If YOU are suffering with reflux, or know someone who is, this is for you, in honor of my father…
Today, I’m going to explain why the standard treatments for acid reflux don’t work – and are actually dangerous – as well as what you can do instead to finally cure your reflux.
But with all of that said, if you are taking medications for your reflux, it’s imperative that you don’t stop taking them cold turkey. If you do, you will experience severe withdrawal symptoms, as your stomach begins generating more acid. Instead, decrease your PPI dose gradually over several weeks in conjunction with your general practitioner’s advice, while at the same time you ADD the necessary supplements and nutrients you need to fix the TRUE CAUSE.
Let’s get started by talking about why you actually need more stomach acid (not less) if you suffer from reflux. If you’ve been following along the last couple of weeks when I talked about the best and worst foods for GERD, some of this is going to be review, but I’m going to go into a lot more detail today.
Why You Want MORE Acid in Your Stomach
Most of us think too much acid in the stomach causes reflux. It’s easy to assume that’s the case because hydrochloric acid, or stomach acid, creeps up the esophagus. You can literally feel it.
On the contrary, reflux is actually caused by too little acid in the stomach, and that statement is supported by 16,000 research articles.
And yes, usually, I tell you ACID is bad.
Usually, I am talking about acidification of the blood, cells, and tissues, which IS bad. But here, I’m referring to the stomach acid we should naturally be producing, which is vital for proper digestion.
As we get older, our bodies, in general, tend to become weaker instead of stronger and slower instead of faster. When it comes to our stomachs, after age of 40 for females, and after age 30 for males, we tend to produce LESS stomach acid instead of more. This lack of adequate stomach acid is commonly misunderstood and can have devastating consequences for our health.
It’s compounded by the acidic lifestyle most of us are already living. When your pH balance is off because we eat too much in the way of fast foods, processed foods, sugar and grains, dairy, coffee, alcohol, and too much animal protein, our stomach cells produce less gastrin, which is responsible for stimulating the production of stomach acid. This sets off a chain reaction.
When less stomach acid is produced, food isn’t broken down and digested as well. With foods not being digested properly, blood doesn’t receive as many essential vitamins (especially B vitamins), minerals, and amino acids.
Next, food moves to the small intestine for continued digestion, but because food wasn’t properly broken down in the stomach, it doesn’t properly break down in the intestine either, so there is an even greater deficiency of vitamins and minerals (read: malnutrition).
At this point, you’re more prone to infections because stomach acid is responsible for killing bacteria that enter the digestive system. As a result, the vital microbiome – the trillions of cells in your intestines – shift from healthier bacteria to an unhealthy balance of bad bacteria, which is called dysbiosis.
This unhealthy bacteria overgrowth produces gas that can literally raise the pressure on the small intestine and stomach, driving the contents of the stomach, including hydrochloric acid, enzymes, and bacteria, up into the esophagus. This is what you feel when you experience the burning and pain of acid reflux.
Heartburn, reflux, and GERD are specific problems of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), where it becomes irritated or is not functioning properly. The LES is a flap of muscle that separates the esophagus from the stomach, and opens and closes to let food into the stomach for digestion. Reflux and GERD occurs when the LES relaxes inappropriately, allowing acid from your stomach to flow (reflux) backward into the esophagus.
Another complicating factor of reflux is a condition known as a hiatal hernia, where the top part of the stomach herniates, or protrudes, through the diaphragm into the upper chest cavity. Ultimately, this weakens the LES valve, often trapping in pockets of acid that easily reflux back into the esophagus.
Why Drugs Make the Problem Worse
The standard treatment for reflux is a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) such as Prevacid, Nexium, and Prilosec.
And by common, I mean really common. Hundreds of millions of Americans take these drugs every year, and PPIs have become a multibillion-dollar industry.
The problem with PPIs is not only that they don’t work, but they are also making the underlying problem even worse while introducing a slew of new health problems at the same time.
As I said earlier, these drugs treat only the symptoms (if that!), never addressing the underlying cause. Meanwhile, you’re setting up a vicious cycle of pH imbalance in your stomach, and microbiome. PPIs fully inhibit acid production in the stomach and make you feel better temporarily in the process.
But in the long run, suppressing stomach acid production is one of the worst things you can do for your health.
Stomach acid is essential to proper digestion, and the last thing we want to do is deplete what low levels of acid you may have, but that is exactly what PPIs do. Every pill you swallow takes any acid you currently have and brings it down to very low level for about a 24-hour period.
The other common non-PPI treatment option are H2 blockers such as Tagamet, Zantac, and Pepcid AC. These drugs have bad digestive side effects, causing nausea, diarrhea, constipation, and even heartburn for many patients. They also interfere with the metabolism of certain hormones, including estradiol and testosterone.
Taking any of these pills every day may expose you to a host of health issues, as you get older, from poor digestion to increased bacterial infection from H Pylori, a common bacteria, to heartburn, GERD, ulcers, and even esophageal cancer.
This may explain why research in recent years has linked PPI use to an increased risk for serious kidney damage, bone fractures, dementia, and even early death!
Compared with H2 blocking drugs, which again, aren’t a safe option either, people who take PPIs for around a year have a 25% increased chance of death, according to physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Because these drugs are so popular, this means potentially thousands of lives lost a year!
Here is my plea to you...
If you have any underlying symptoms of heartburn or reflux, please don’t take it lightly. Your body is telling you that there is a problem. I don’t say this to scare you. I say this because I don’t want anyone else to suffer the way my dad did with esophageal cancer.
Crush it while you still can. Once you’ve addressed the true cause and moved your body into a healthier and more balanced state, then you can begin the process of weaning off reflux drugs in conjunction with your doctor.
My 3-Step Plan to Crush Acid Reflux Without Drugs
- Introduce the right foods that your body needs to soothe the inflammation and restore the proper pH along your digestive tract.
Read: The 15 Surprising Foods That Help Acid Reflux (#2 Will Shock You)
- Stop eating the foods that are making acid reflux symptoms worse, which will be easier to do since you’re eating more and more of the right foods.
Read: The 10 Worst Foods That Make Acid Reflux More Severe
- End the inflammation for good and promote proper pH with the right balance of supplements.
Acid reflux is, in part, an inflammation problem. So fixing it requires nature’s top anti-inflammatories to bring the digestive tract back into its natural, balanced state. Make that happen with these 3 supplements:
NEW! Daily Cumin3X – Our brand new concentrated, cold-pressed, unrefined black cumin seed oil is 3 TIMES more powerful than turmeric and other black cumin seed oils.
How can I make such an outrageous claim? Because when you look at the active ingredient that fights the inflammation, it’s Thymoquinone. My mission was to find the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory, and that led me to Israel and this supplement, which touts an impressive 3% of this ingredient, where our leading competitors have only 1%...THAT’S HUGE for you!
It reduces chronic inflammation anywhere it happens throughout the body, including the digestive tract and cardiovascular system.
This product has only been out a few weeks, and the results are powerful! Even the famous FOOD GOD (Kim Kardashian’s best friend) posted how after 1 supplement, his chronic sinusitis was gone!
It doesn’t matter if the inflammation is landing in your sinuses, your chest with reflux, your gut, your cardiovascular system, or your brain, get on this supplement! (and get your family on it also!)
Our Alkamind Daily Omega-3 is the best quality fish oil supplement on the planet and the ONLY one with the ideal 2:1 ratio of EPA to DHA in a highly concentrated form (Molecular Distillation) to reduce chronic inflammation.
So you can TAKE LESS and GET MORE benefit from it. Many companies use rancid oils, and you have to take so many to get the actual amount you need!
Alkamind Daily Minerals is the super supplement that has helped countless sufferers finally get rid of their heart burn and acid reflux in as little as a few days and alleviates symptoms immediately. It delivers just the right balance of magnesium, calcium, potassium, and sodium bicarbonate to stamp out the acid that causes so much pain and discomfort.
GET OFF YOUR ACID…REFLUX!
Dr. Daryl
