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Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms
Weight Loss and Heartburn
Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms By Linda Carroll Special to MSN Go to the doctor to get relief for your heartburn and the first thing she's likely to say, if you're overweight, is that you need to shed a few pounds. That's because studies have suggested a strong link between obesity and a tendency to develop gastroesophageal reflux. Heartburn symptoms do seem to improve when people cut calories. But no one really knows why extra pounds can lead to heartburn or why weight loss can improve symptoms. Some doctors argue that symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, are the result of a big bulging tummy, that gravity pushes — especially at night — against the stomach. That extra weight increases the pressure put on the lower esophageal sphincter, the valve connecting the esophagus to the stomach. This leads to stomach acid traveling back up into the esophagus, causing a burning sensation in the upper chest. There is evidence that people who significantly slim down experience big improvements in heartburn symptoms. For example, a report published in February in the journal Obesity Surgery followed 295 patients who were given gastric banding operations. Four years after the surgery, 79 percent of patients who initially had heartburn problems said their symptoms cleared up. Another 11 percent of patients said their heartburn had improved significantly. Diet, pregnancy and reflux Still, there's no consensus among experts as to why weight loss might improve GERD. It's not clear whether heartburn is extinguished because pounds have melted away or because people have changed their diets and eating habits. The most likely explanation for symptom improvement is the change in eating habits that accompanies most diets, says Dr. Bennett Roth, a professor of medicine and chief of clinical gastroenterology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "When you lose weight, you eat less," Roth explains. "And when you're eating less, there's a tendency to not go to bed with a full, overextended stomach." Beyond this, dieters often cut back on items that tend to spark heartburn, such as fatty foods and chocolate, Roth says. The real answer may be a bit of both, says Dr. Felice Schnoll-Sussman, an assistant attending physician at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. To explain how the extra pounds can lead to GERD, Schnoll-Sussman points to the problems pregnant women experience. "It's very common for pregnant women to have reflux even if they've never had heartburn before," Schnoll-Sussman says. "The reason is that their expanding uterus presses up on the stomach, which now has a lot less capacitance. The extra pressure thrusts the contents of the stomach up against the esophagus." And, generally, when pregnant women give birth and slim down again, their heartburn clears up. You can extrapolate from that example to obesity, Schnoll-Sussman says. "Here you also have an expanding abdomen," she explains. "And that may put pressure on the stomach, especially when you're lying down. Now you've got gravity working against you pushing the belly against your stomach." A weighty issue Dr. David C. Metz, a professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia, compares the pressure put on the stomach by extra fat to the effects of wearing tight clothing and eating a big meal. "That's why we tell people to loosen their belts after a meal," he says. Metz suspects that obesity also increases the risk that a person will develop a hiatal hernia, which, in turn, would make a person more prone to developing heartburn. It's possible that when you hit a certain weight, the extra pressure may permanently stretch out the esophagus, leading to the hiatal hernia, he says. Once the hernia has developed, weight loss won't help put out the heartburn, Metz says. Weight loss doesn't help everyone, Schnoll-Sussman allows. People with other predisposing factors may still experience symptoms even after they drop the extra pounds. "But, I've had patients who've lost a lot of weight and they were completely cured," Schnoll-Sussman says. The amount of weight loss it takes to improve heartburn may be an individual thing, experts say. "My own father had a threshold weight above which he got reflux and below which he didn't," Metz says. "He could tell me what he weighed based on that." |
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Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms
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Hash: SHA1 On 25 Apr 2004 17:08:14 -0000, Sammi wrote: This is off-topic for SSFA. Thanks LV Lady Veteran - ----------------------------------- "I rode a tank and held a general's rank when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank..." - -Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil - ------------------------------------------------ People who hide behind anonymous remailers and ridicule fat people are cowardly idiots with no motive but malice. - --------------------------------------------- "To Do Is To Be" Socrates "To Be Is To Do" Plato "Do Be Do Be Do" Sinatra - ------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com iQA/AwUBQIv1K+koPZAZfLgsEQKp9gCg1LEs8rKVeLMA5ulEUwD9Em lPfA8An1Gv YLU1oY89SNpPs437FFIJ8h5Q =Qj3+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms
[note: headers trimmed back to just asdlc]
Sammi wrote: .. That's because studies have suggested a strong link between obesity and a tendency to develop gastroesophageal reflux. I still find it odd that the medical community is unwilling to acknowledge, or hasn't figured out, accurate information re effects of diet on heartburn and reflux. As this article pointed out, there are probably multiple factors influencing this, but just pointing out "fatty foods" as a dietary cause is very inaccurate. Pre-diets, when I was eating a fair amount of restaurant and fast food, I had frequent episodes of reflux, very painful. When I was on a very low fat diet, they went away (but there were other problems). Back to rich restaurant food, back came the reflux, along with more pounds. Then LC, with lots of fat, and no more reflux. The relief from reflux came almost immediately, long before there was any appreciable weight loss. But obviously it may play a role in some cases. It appears, from reading this newsgroup over time, that it's somewhat uncommon for a low carb dieter to continue to suffer from reflux once established consistently on a LC WOE. HG |
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Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms
In article , Hannah Gruen says...
[note: headers trimmed back to just asdlc] Sammi wrote: . That's because studies have suggested a strong link between obesity and a tendency to develop gastroesophageal reflux. I still find it odd that the medical community is unwilling to acknowledge, or hasn't figured out, accurate information re effects of diet on heartburn and reflux. As this article pointed out, there are probably multiple factors influencing this, but just pointing out "fatty foods" as a dietary cause is very inaccurate. Pre-diets, when I was eating a fair amount of restaurant and fast food, I had frequent episodes of reflux, very painful. When I was on a very low fat diet, they went away (but there were other problems). Back to rich restaurant food, back came the reflux, along with more pounds. Then LC, with lots of fat, and no more reflux. The relief from reflux came almost immediately, long before there was any appreciable weight loss. But obviously it may play a role in some cases. It appears, from reading this newsgroup over time, that it's somewhat uncommon for a low carb dieter to continue to suffer from reflux once established consistently on a LC WOE. HG My experience was similar. I usually had enough heartburn to know when I was going to have a reflux attack. I popped Ultra Tums about 5 nights a week, which usually helped. When I went on Low Carb both the heartburn and the reflux attacks stopped almost immediately. I still have half a bottle of Ultra Tums in the cupboard. Haven't opened it in almost 3 years. |
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Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms
It appears, from reading
this newsgroup over time, that it's somewhat uncommon for a low carb dieter to continue to suffer from reflux once established consistently on a LC WOE. My acid reflux went away almost immediately. I went from sleeping sitting up to realizing (some time during induction) that I hadn't taken any heartburn medication, was sleeping through the night, and my pain was gone. This wasn't from losing weight, I hadn't lost much then (and had been a little lower on low cal/fat with it still burning me up). This was 100% linked to my change of diet. LCing since 12/01/03- Me- 5'7" 265/210/140 & hubby- 6' 310/224/180 |
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Shedding a few extra pounds can improve acid reflux symptoms
In article , Hannah Gruen
wrote: [note: headers trimmed back to just asdlc] Sammi wrote: . That's because studies have suggested a strong link between obesity and a tendency to develop gastroesophageal reflux. I still find it odd that the medical community is unwilling to acknowledge, or hasn't figured out, accurate information re effects of diet on heartburn and reflux. As this article pointed out, there are probably multiple factors influencing this, but just pointing out "fatty foods" as a dietary cause is very inaccurate. Pre-diets, when I was eating a fair amount of restaurant and fast food, I had frequent episodes of reflux, very painful. When I was on a very low fat diet, they went away (but there were other problems). Back to rich restaurant food, back came the reflux, along with more pounds. Then LC, with lots of fat, and no more reflux. The relief from reflux came almost immediately, long before there was any appreciable weight loss. But obviously it may play a role in some cases. It appears, from reading this newsgroup over time, that it's somewhat uncommon for a low carb dieter to continue to suffer from reflux once established consistently on a LC WOE. HG Pre-LC = One Pepcid AC and 4 Gaviscon every night. Now = No antiacids since the second day on LC. -- Wayne Crannell Texas |
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