Chapter 1

Saying Goodbye to Reflux: Your Road to a Reflux-Free Lifestyle

In This Chapter

Understanding acid reflux

Seeing how lifestyle impacts reflux

Cooking for an acid-free lifestyle

Acid reflux is a common medical condition that affects millions of people around the globe. For some, reflux is a minor inconvenience, but others battle reflux daily. Your reflux may not require anything more than the occasional antacid. Or your fight with reflux could require daily medication, lifestyle changes, and even surgery. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, acid reflux has an impact.

The battle against reflux isn’t always easy. Some days, the struggle may not seem worth the results, but in the long run, eliminating reflux is worth the effort. Not only will you be healthier and reduce your risk for serious medical complications associated with reflux, but you’ll also just plain feel better.

What Acid Reflux Is, and Why It’s Bad

Acid reflux is a digestive disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. Unlike many diseases or disorders, it doesn’t discriminate. It affects all ages, races, ethnicities, and genders equally. Just because your family doesn’t have a history of reflux doesn’t mean you won’t get reflux. Likewise, all your siblings having the condition doesn’t mean you’ll get it. Reflux also varies significantly in severity and frequency. Regardless of who it affects or how severe it gets, reflux is the result of a malfunctioning digestive system.

Depending on your symptoms, your doctor may diagnose you with acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The root problem is the same for both of these conditions; it’s the severity and frequency that separates the two. Patients who suffer heartburn or other reflux symptoms two or more times a week will usually be diagnosed with GERD. While GERD is usually the more serious condition, both acid reflux and GERD can lead to long-term health consequences.

The main culprit in all acid-reflux cases is the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), a small ring of muscles that connects the esophagus and the stomach. The esophagus is the tube that extends from the mouth to the stomach. This tube carries anything you eat or drink into the stomach. When your LES is working correctly, it functions as a one-way valve, allowing food and fluids to pass into the stomach while blocking any stomach contents from coming back up.

If you have acid reflux or GERD, your LES is malfunctioning. Instead of blocking the stomach’s contents, the contents are allowed to travel back up into the esophagus. Because stomach acid is highly corrosive, it doesn’t take much to cause discomfort and do some damage. Depending on how severe your reflux is, acid can make it all the way up to the larynx, throat, and mouth. In some cases that fiery fury can even make it into the lungs.

The reason why the LES malfunctions varies from person to person. In some cases, the LES may not close off completely after food or fluid passes through. Because the stomach works like a washing machine on spin cycle when digesting, a partially open LES means churning stomach acid can easily whirl out of the stomach. In other cases, your LES may simply open and close on its own, allowing your stomach’s contents to escape. Sometimes the factor is lifestyle or weight; for other people, it’s anatomy. Regardless of the root cause, how often and how severely your LES malfunctions will have a tremendous impact on how serious your acid reflux turns out to be.

Several symptoms are associated with acid reflux. The most common symptom is heartburn. Heartburn is so common that many people mistakenly refer to heartburn and acid reflux as the same thing. Heartburn is the burning sensation that results from stomach acid surging into the esophagus. Acid reflux is the condition that allows acid to make it into the esophagus. Although the pain associated with heartburn can be severe — so severe that it’s sometimes mistaken for a heart attack — it’s usually not a serious medical condition.

Some of the other relatively innocuous symptoms of acid reflux include gas, burping, bloating, regurgitation, and nausea. Although these symptoms may not seem serious, dealing with them on a regular basis can hamper your life.

Reflux is also linked with several serious, life-threatening medical conditions. One of the more serious conditions associated with reflux is esophageal stricture (a narrowing of the esophagus), which can make it difficult to swallow and often requires surgery to correct. Even more serious is Barrett’s esophagus, a mutation of the cells lining the esophagus; this condition can be a precursor to esophageal cancer. No thank you.

It’s not just the possible medical complications that make treating reflux or GERD worthwhile. Reflux affects life in so many other ways as well. It affects mood and emotions and sleep. When you’re constantly dealing with discomfort or having to worry if your next meal is going to lead to hours of pain, it’s hard to live in the moment. When you can’t get a good night’s sleep because of reflux, it makes each day that much longer and harder to get through. Add the constant stress your body is under from having to repair the physical damage that results from reflux, and it’s a recipe for misery. So, even if you don’t think your reflux is too bad, go ahead and take the challenge of reducing your reflux, and see how much better you feel.

Revamping Diet and Lifestyle

For some people, diet and lifestyle changes are easy. For you, it might be a long journey that can leave you feeling like you’re sacrificing just as much as you’re gaining. But keep with it! When your reflux is under control, all the effort will have been worth it. The other big advantage of treating reflux with lifestyle and dietary changes is monetary. Medication or surgery can be extremely expensive, but lifestyle and dietary changes are inexpensive.

Even just a few tweaks to diet can sometimes make a world of difference for your reflux. And diet is often one of the primary triggers for reflux symptoms like heartburn. You can probably name at least one meal that you know spells trouble for your reflux. But figuring out what exactly it is about that meal that’s causing the flare-up can be difficult. Is it the ingredients, the sauce, the spices, or even how it’s prepared?

Several foods seem to universally affect people’s acid reflux and GERD negatively:

• High-fat foods: High-fat foods can sit in the stomach longer, which stimulates the body to produce more stomach acid. The more stomach acid you have spinning around in your stomach, the more likely some of it will enter the esophagus. Fatty and greasy foods cause the LES to relax. So, while there’s more stomach acid splashing around for a longer period of time, there’s also a weakened LES trying to keep your stomach contents where they belong. That’s asking a lot of your body.
• Spicy foods: These foods can be troublesome for patients with reflux and GERD. They don’t affect everyone as universally as high-fat foods, but it’s not uncommon for patients to complain of severe heartburn after an extra spicy or flavorful meal.
• Meals with lots of ingredients: Some dietitians believe that complicated meals with lots of ingredients can be difficult to digest. Meals like these sit in the stomach longer, which can give your reflux an extended period of time to strike.
• Highly acidic foods: Even if they don’t actually cause reflux, highly acidic foods can increase the pain and damage done to an already inflamed and irritated esophagus and throat.
• Processed foods: Staying away from processed foods is a good idea. Some dietitians believe that the body has to work harder to break down processed foods. Just like fatty foods, this may mean more gastric acid and a longer digestion period — prime reflux conditions. The longer food remains in the stomach, the more gastric acid is stimulated, and that longer timeframe presents more opportunities for gastric contents to regurgitate up the esophagus. Foods that are hard to mechanically digest, or grind up in the stomach, hang out longer.

It turns out when and how much you eat can have just as much of an impact on your reflux as what you eat. Most people are used to the traditional three daily meals with dinner being the largest. Although this may be tradition, it spells trouble for reflux. Eating only three meals a day (instead of smaller, more frequent meals) makes you more likely to overindulge at any given meal. Even if you don’t overindulge, the meals are probably bigger than they’d be if you ate five meals a day. When you eat a large meal, it forces your stomach to stretch out. This puts more pressure on the LES, increasing the likelihood that it will fail and some stomach acid will escape. This is why binge eating is never a good idea, especially for people with reflux or GERD.

Instead of the traditional three large meals, try switching to five smaller meals. This will keep you from getting hungry and will put less stress on your stomach and LES. You should also try to eat your largest meal of the day for breakfast and keep your dinner relatively small. You’ll have more energy during the day and your body won’t be processing food...