Today I'm going to share some unexpected connections between reflux, stomach acid,
and PPIs. So stay tuned. Hey there, if you're new here, my name's Amanda Malachesky, am a certified
functional nutrition health coach and a digestive and allergy detective. For tips and tricks on
how to improve your digestion naturally, please consider subscribing and be sure to hit the bell
to be notified when I post a new video every week. PPIs, otherwise known as proton pump inhibitors,
are medications that are used to reduce stomach acid and ideally prevent reflux and heartburn. But
do they really work? By the end of today's video, you'll know more about the connection
between stomach acid and reflux and heartburn, and you'll understand more about how or whether
PPIs work. And every week, I see clients with heartburn and reflux in my practice and I'm
supporting them figuring out these problems for themselves, and you can too. So let's get started.
Lately, I've had several clients come into my practice with chronic heartburn and reflux,
and a lot of them have really similar stories. So I'm curious to know if you have some variation of
this story in your life. You have chronic reflux or heartburn and you've been experiencing it
frequently over the last six months to many years, and you finally go to the doctor to get it checked
up on and some of them maybe do some evaluation, some don't, but they prescribe you what's called
a proton pump inhibitor medication. And you start taking the medication and maybe you feel a little
better, but then you decide, "I don't want to take this medication forever. I want to come
off of it." And you come off the medication and then all of a sudden, your heartburn's back to
square one or it's way worse than it was in the beginning. And now you're in this place where
you feel really stuck. Like you don't want to keep taking the medication, but if you don't, you have
a really miserable life. So if you can relate to that story, give me a like below this video.
Okay, where do I even want to start with this one? Well, okay, so PPI's do relieve symptoms of
heartburn in the short term for a lot of people, but the trouble is that doctors tend to want to
just prescribe them as a long-term solution. And in this way, that's not a great idea because we
really do need that stomach acid in the long-term for our health. And research shows that long-term
PPI use is not recommended. It's important that we have stomach acid because that stomach acid
helps protect our bodies from incoming pathogens, it helps us absorb our vitamin B12 and our iron,
and it also helps stimulate your body to release very important digestive juices like the bile
from your gallbladder and enzymes from your pancreas. So we really do need the stomach acid
to have good digestive health and everything that flows out from that digestive health.
And so when you look at it like this way, the PPIs are really just a band-aid solution
that are plastering over something that really needs to be addressed. So the real question
here is what do we need to do to address those underlying causes of heartburn and reflux? So
what do we do about reflux? Well, reflux is very often a signal from your body that your stomach
acid is actually low. And here's one more thing that stomach acid does that's very important.
There's a sphincter between your esophagus, which is the tube that goes from your mouth
down into your stomach, and your stomach. And that sphincter should only open up when food comes
through as you swallow or drink as you swallow it. But when we have low stomach acid, that sphincter
gets a little bit lazy and it doesn't hold itself closed as well as it should. And so this can lead
to reflux. This can lead to things creeping back up your esophagus towards your mouth, and
the stomach acid that is in there, even though it's a little bit lower than it should be, can
start to damage the lining of your esophagus. And this is when you get that experience of heartburn
or burning or irritation in your esophagus, and it feels like it's behind your heart.
So there are several risk factors for low stomach acid. So see of you fall into one of
these categories. The first one is if you're over 60. We just naturally tend to produce
less stomach acid as we age. And so if you're someone who is 60 or older, you might just have
less stomach acid than you used to and you may need to supplement. A second risk factor for
low stomach acid is if you are or have been vegetarian or vegan. While you're vegetarian
and vegan, your body doesn't need as much stomach acid to digest your food because you're not eating
as much animal protein. And this is... Protein is the thing that stomach acid helps digest,
but we also need vitamin B12 to help make our stomach acid. And when we're vegetarian and vegan,
we are often deficient in this really important nutrient.
So history of vegetarianism or veganism can be a risk factor for low stomach acid.
A third risk factor for low stomach acid is if you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis or are hypothyroid.
Research has shown that about a third to half of people with Hashimoto's thyroiditis also
have stomach autoimmunity and that autoimmunity can damage the cells that lead to stomach acid
release. So if you're someone who is hypothyroid or has Hashimoto's thyroiditis, you might need
to supplement with stomach acid. And finally, infection with the bacteria called H. pylori,
which burrows into the lining of the stomach can also lead to low stomach acid because the bacteria
can damage the cells that produce stomach acid. So what does all this mean? Well, what this
really means is that in order to see if you have low stomach acid or a stomach acid is
related to your reflux problem, we have to do a little bit of digging to try and
understand what the root cause of the problem is. The simplest experiment to try and see if
low stomach acid is a part of your reflux problem is to try supplementing with stomach acid. And the
easiest way to do this is to add a little bit of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar in a little
bit of water before your meals. The other option is to use what's called betaine hydrochloride.
It's a supplement that comes in capsules or tablets, and you can take this before your meals.
Now, this can get a little bit tricky if you are someone who is experiencing a lot
of that burning sensation. And sometimes, supplementing with stomach acid can actually
lead to a worsening of your symptoms if you're not careful. So if this happens for you,
one thing to try is to include something soothing just a few minutes before you take
the stomach acid supplements. So this might look like including something like DGL chewable tablets
or powder, which is Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice. That's a hard word to say, but you can just call
it DGL. That's what it's called in the stores. So you can choose some of those up right before
you eat, or you could do something like drink a little bit of aloe juice, or you can get what's
called slippery elm powder and mix that with a little water and drink that down.
And so you can use these items just before you take the stomach acid supplementation,
and that can help coat your stomach or your intestine where it's irritated so that you
can tolerate the stomach acid. And really, if you are doing this consistently with every meal
for a little while, you should start to notice a decrease in your reflux and heartburn because
that sphincter should start to stay closed a little bit better with that stomach acid support.
So for a little bit more on how to support your stomach acid, you can check out my earlier video,
how to support stomach acid for digestive health. I'll leave a link for that below this video.
Now, if this only helps a little bit or not at all, there are several other possible triggers or
reasons for your reflux and heartburn. And so now we've got to dig a little deeper and do a little
bit of investigation. And one of the really common possible reasons are food triggers. There can be
certain particular foods that trigger your reflux or heartburn. And for most of you, you probably
have a sense of what some of these things are. Heartburn's so uncomfortable that when we figure
that, "Oh, it seems like this might be causing the problem. I'm going to avoid that food." But
sometimes people do still come to me, they're not really clear on which foods are triggering their
symptoms. Some of the common ones for heartburn are fatty foods, spicy foods, chocolate, caffeine,
and tomatoes is one that several people have told me about in their personal lives,
but it really could be any food that you're sensitive to for one reason or another.
And one place to look in particular are foods that are high in histamine. I feel like I see
a good bit of histamine foods triggering some heartburn issues. So if you need a little bit
more about that, you can go check out my histamine videos. I'll leave some links for those below this
video. But a really easy, straightforward place to start is with just a simple elimination diet that
just cleans up the most common inflammatory foods. And that might be something like the
paleo diet, where you're removing dairy and legumes, grains, and gluten in particular,
and go from there. And then if you don't get any relief from that simple elimination diet,
then you can start customizing it a little further with things like the histamine diet.
Another thing you can be mindful of is the possibility of some kind of structural problem
in your anatomy, and the most common example of this that really seems to have an effect on reflux
and heartburn is something called a hiatal hernia, which is when a little part of your upper stomach
actually is poking through your diaphragm where it shouldn't be. And this can just cause some
trouble with the closing of the sphincter and keeping contents in the stomach. And so if you
suspect that you might have a hiatal hernia, your doctor can help you diagnose this. And a
lot of times, certain types of chiropractors, physical therapists, and also naturopaths
are skilled at returning the stomach to its normal position and bringing the stomach down
out of that hernia opening. And this can resolve a lot of issues. So that's definitely something
to consider. It's not necessarily something that practitioners directly advertise, but you can
call them and ask them if they have experience with this issue and know how to work on it.
Finally, getting screened for H. pylori is really important if you have chronic reflux or heartburn,
especially that doesn't resolve or respond to any of these other treatments, and especially
if you have diagnosed ulcers. H. pylori is highly correlated with ulcer development,
so it's highly likely that if you have ulcers, you also have this infection.
And clearing the infection can provide some really good results for resolution of ulcers, but also
reflux and heartburn that's associated with it. So to learn more about
testing and screening for something like H. pylori and other gut infections, you can check
out my video, gut microbiome testing for IBS. I will leave a link for that below this video.
And one additional thing is that you do not want to supplement with stomach acid if you have an
H. pylori infection. So if you suspect you have one, please refrain from supplementing stomach
acid until you're sure one way or another, and then you can move forward from there.
Now, if you're able to include stomach acid and it doesn't resolve your problem,
and some of these other things are resolved and you also haven't solved your problem,
what now? Well, there are a couple of layers of basic digestive supports that are always
really important to work through before jumping to big major conclusions or diagnoses. So these
are things like digestive enzymes, making sure that you have a formula that's really working for
you and helping you digest everything that you're eating. Another is to really dial in your diet and
make sure that you're not consuming foods that are aggravating your digestion or other health issues.
And another example would be probiotics, which can really just help reset your microbiome and
make sure that it's in balance and not causing problems. So if you need a little bit more support
with this kind of work, I really encourage you to download my free gut guide called Roadmap to
Gut Recovery. You can grab a free copy of that by going to confluencenutrition.com/roadmap,
and I will definitely leave a link for you to grab that below this video.
Have you been unsuccessful with PPIs for reflux or heartburn? Tell me about it in the comments.
So that's the scoop on reflux, stomach acid, and PPIs. It's okay to use them for a little while
if you have to, but you should be thinking about how to resolve the situation from the root cause,
which can be about food sensitivities, it can be about needing to support your stomach acid,
it can be about a hiatal hernia, or it can be about an H. pylori infections. So it's important
that you work methodically through figuring out what's the thing that's really going on for me.
Now, if you're struggling with heartburn and reflux and you've already tried a lot of things
and you're really not sure where to go next or what to do, I am an expert at helping you sift
through all of those details and organize that information so you can come up with a reasonable
and doable plan. So if you'd like to talk to me about working one-on-one with me, you can schedule
a free 30 minute assessment session with me. In that session, we'll talk about where your health
is at right now, where you'd like to go, and I can give you some idea of where I think you might need
to go next. And we can talk about what it would be like to work together. You can schedule that
by going to confluencenutrition.com/contact. And I'll look forward to seeing you on my schedule.
Well, I hope that this video helped you make some new connections between reflux, stomach acid,
and PPI's, and you have a better idea of how you might start to resolve some of these symptoms for
yourself. If you liked this video, please consider liking and sharing it with people who might use
it, and subscribe if you haven't already. And I will look forward to seeing you next time.